- test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org - classiccmp.org

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Sean Caron > the worst thing on the market since the old Quantum Bigfoot Just out of curiousity, what was so bad about the Bigfoot? Noel

10 years, 8 months

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Looking for some DEC-related spares..

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: tony duell > They would never take being straightened, the metal is partially > fractured already. Ah. OK. Well, a later poster mentioned a possible source of new feet - I had assumed you wanted exactly identical ones, which may not be available, but if all you want is functionality, you can probably find that from the sources they provided. > I have found a little 4 slot Qbus box with 3 swtiches on the front, > these seem to be the same mechanisms behind the toggles. Yes, they are: I fixed an 11/05 front panel with switches sourced from one of those 11/03 front panels. I hated to do it, but the 11/03 panel was a spare, and as you say, if the switches ever re-appear, I can repair it. Noel

10 years, 8 months

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Looking for some DEC-related spares..

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: tony duell > 2 of said feet got bent at right-angles (!) Hammer them straight, and clean up the threads with a die. Those outriggers are unobtainium, so I can't imagine the feet are much better. > switch mechanisms for the PDP11/45 front panel. I have the toggles > (thankfully), I need the switches Now you're really into unobtainium territory. We've been moaning about the inability to find these for a while now. All the early 11's (except the 11/20) use these - 11/05, 11/40, 11/45, etc - and a bunch of us need them, but nothing doing. Noel

10 years, 8 months

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Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info?

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Along with the 11/44 I also picked up a Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside workstation; I can't seem to dig up much information specific to this model (a badge on the rear labels it as "Model/Index No. B01732"). I can take some detailed pictures later this week after I've had time to clean it up (it's very, very dirty), but it looks very similar to the DPS-6 unit pictured on this site: http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/projet/gcos6/gcos6.htm Anyone have any docs on this thing? Or fun anecdotes to share? What have I gotten myself into with this thing? Thanks, Josh

10 years, 8 months

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Is tape dead?

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

I came across a fascinating article by Evan Koblentz in TechRepublic Daily Digest today entitled: ?Tape isn't dying -- it's getting healthier and smarter?. Does this mean my ADAM tape drive system has a future after all? Naw! But one can wish. Are there tape systems in the PDP family, et. al., still running? Happy computing. Murray :)

10 years, 8 months

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FOR SALE: IMSAI 8080, Canon Cat, PDP 11/05, Heathkit H11, Polymorphic Systems POLY88, SWTPC 6800

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I have the following systems presently for sale: IMSAI 8080 http://vintagetech.com/sales/IMSAI%208080/ Canon Cat http://vintagetech.com/sales/Canon%20Cat/ PDP 11/05 http://vintagetech.com/sales/Big%20Iron/PDP%2011-05.JPG Heathkit H11 http://vintagetech.com/sales/Heathkit%20H11/ Polymorphic Systems POLY88 http://vintagetech.com/sales/Polymorphic%20Systems%20POLY88/ SWTPC 6800 http://vintagetech.com/sales/SWTPC%206800/ Please inquire in private e-mail for more information and price (negotiable). Thanks! -- Sellam ibn Abraham VintageTech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintagetech.com Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The truth is always simple. * * * NOTICE * * * Due to the insecure nature of the medium over which this message has been transmitted, no statement made in this writing may be considered reliable for any purpose either express or implied. The contents of this message are appropriate for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. The right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.

10 years, 8 months

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Moving PDP 11 gear - Status update

by lyokoboy0＠gmail.com

Hello. It has been a while since i have posted anything on this list. Last time i posted i was asking advice on how to properly load up and move a pdp 11 with related gear. It has been quite some time since i picked all this stuff up and figured i would give a status update here to let others know my progress with the machine. Images of what I picked up can be posted later if there is interest. In total i picked up the following: 2 racks containing - a pdp 11/34 2 RL02 drives A RL01 Drive 2 complete vt 100 terminals 2 large line printers a second empty 11/34 . no cards. second rack contains a large tape drive. Piles of tapes and rl02 disks. I have yet to inventory them all. Most are labled with aircraft names. The machine was used to recover flight data recorder info, so i imagine that is what is on most of the tapes. Lots of RSX docs and related tapes. I had the machine fired up for an hour or two, i was messing with the front panel when i heard a fizzing sound followed by a burning smell. The front panel is no longer responsive. I have been going over the power supply. Mr Paul Anderson on the list here has been generously been giving much of his spare time assisting me on the phone with troubleshooting the power supply. Thats my progress so far. Kinda taunting that i moved it all the way over here and it does not even work yet, but hopefully soon i can get it to work again. Lastly, the line printers were thrown in at the last moment, i was not sure i was even going to be able to fit them in the van. Due to their weight i have not been able to move them from where they were sat down since they were picked up back in july. If anyone is interested in them, i can let them go for cheap. I just do not have the space for them both, but the seller was going to throw them out if i did not take them. Ill post back with the model #'s and a couple pictures. --Devin

10 years, 8 months

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RL01, RL02, RK06, RK07 cable differences

by useddec＠gmail.com

Does anyone have both of these that I can pick their brains? Thanks, Paul

10 years, 8 months

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cctech Digest, Vol 15, Issue 25

by clemc＠ccc.com

?below...? On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 1:00 PM, <cctech-request at classiccmp.org> wrote: > --------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> > > http://www.eah-jena.de/~kleine/history/languages/ansi-x3dot9 > -1966-Fortran66.pdf > > The surprising thing is how spare the ANSI document is: 36 pages, > including appendices. > > Compare to, say, F95... > ?Chuck, I sent your comment to one of the guys on the current ANSI standard, his reply: "Fortran 2015 is currently 617 pages and will go some more before publication"?

10 years, 8 months

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Amstrad CPC6128 joins the rest home

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

It's a busy life nowadays but never too busy to kit out a newly-acquired Amstrad CPC6128. http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2015-09-24-amstrad6128-acquire-fix… for those who might be interested. It's the first time I've played with those 3 inch disks. Tez

10 years, 8 months

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Looking for some DEC-related spares..

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

I am currently sorting things out after a house move last year and getting my PDP11s back together. Unfortuantely there was some damage in the move [1] and I am currently looking for a source for the following : 1) 2 off the small screw-down feet used on the outriggers of the H960 rack. Not the larger ones under the rack, the little ones with the 3/8" A/F hexagon for a spanner. I have the outrigger castings, undamaged, but 2 of said feet got bent at right-angles (!) [2] 2) 2 off switch mechanisms for the PDP11/45 front panel. I have the toggles (thankfully), I need the switches. I think the 11/40 and 11/70 use the same swtiches. Probably C&K originally. [1] I have learnt the hard way. If you need to move classic computers do not use a removal company (this applies to anything else of any value). It is cheaper in the end to find 3 or so friends and give them 10K pounds/dollars each to help you with the move. [2] I asked said removal men if I should remove the outriggers. They told me not to bother. Looks like they tried to pivot the rack on those little feet (!). -tony

10 years, 8 months

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US source for SCSI2SD boards

by aek＠bitsavers.org

>from the vintage-computer list http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?49260-SCSI2SD-microS… http://www.ebay.com/itm/191700123328

10 years, 8 months

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OT: Migraine was RE: would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal ...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

I have tried the log the foods I eat and all the other routines to find a cure... was even willing to give up lobster if that was a trigger. Alas - so far, no solve. Ed# In a message dated 9/25/2015 12:22:15 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, dave.g4ugm at gmail.com writes: Used to get the headaches with no visuals, but wearing the correct glasses and keeping my screen clean seems to have solved that, but since then, like Dwight, I have had a couple of attacks of the "lightening lines" and blurred vision. The eye hospital tell me that this is an "ocular migraine" and I can concour its really strange and somewhat scary especially for the first time... Dave G4UGM > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of dwight > Sent: 25 September 2015 03:50 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: RE: would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with > small ecli... > > I get the squiggly lines but no headache. > Strange stuff. > Dwight > > > > Subject: Re: would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with > small ecli... > > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > From: cube1 at charter.net > > Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 23:59:39 -0500 > > > > On 9/22/2015 11:00 PM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > > > probably an artifact generated by my migraine this evening . > > > > > > > Ugh. Had some of those while I was in High School, complete with > > squiggly lines, often nausea and hours of intense pain. You have my > > sympathy. > > > > Then one day I started to get one while I was driving from home to the > > local music store. I pulled over, took a deep breath and (I kid you > > not) told myself no, you are not going to get a migraine, ain't gonna > > happen. It went away almost immediately, and I haven't had one since. > > Go figure. Almost certainly pure coincidence. [I wish that would work > > for everyone. Sigh.] > > > > JRJ >

10 years, 8 months

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OT: Migraine was RE: would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com

Used to get the headaches with no visuals, but wearing the correct glasses and keeping my screen clean seems to have solved that, but since then, like Dwight, I have had a couple of attacks of the "lightening lines" and blurred vision. The eye hospital tell me that this is an "ocular migraine" and I can concour its really strange and somewhat scary especially for the first time... Dave G4UGM > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of dwight > Sent: 25 September 2015 03:50 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: RE: would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with > small ecli... > > I get the squiggly lines but no headache. > Strange stuff. > Dwight > > > > Subject: Re: would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with > small ecli... > > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > From: cube1 at charter.net > > Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 23:59:39 -0500 > > > > On 9/22/2015 11:00 PM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > > > probably an artifact generated by my migraine this evening . > > > > > > > Ugh. Had some of those while I was in High School, complete with > > squiggly lines, often nausea and hours of intense pain. You have my > > sympathy. > > > > Then one day I started to get one while I was driving from home to the > > local music store. I pulled over, took a deep breath and (I kid you > > not) told myself no, you are not going to get a migraine, ain't gonna > > happen. It went away almost immediately, and I haven't had one since. > > Go figure. Almost certainly pure coincidence. [I wish that would work > > for everyone. Sigh.] > > > > JRJ >

10 years, 8 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 15, Issue 24

by mark＠markesystems.com

>> I don't know what you're looking at for the front end of this project, >> but have you considered SQLite for the database engine back end? If > >No, I would not consider it. I have experience with it on my Garmin GPS >unit. I really dislike it. Wow - I'm quite surprised at that. It is in *everything*: Android, iOS, FireFox, Chrome, - the list goes far on. Personally, I've never used it on an embedded platform, although I'm certainly keeping it in my back pocket for the time when I need an embedded database. What problems have you experienced? I have used it on PC platforms, and have been quite impressed with how robust the database structure is. It's all contained in one file, and it's an in-process library, not a server. This makes it not-as-good for massively multi-user stuff, but *much* easier to administer; no daemons to manage, and just one database file (like Access, but better). I use it for industrial automation applications, and have tested it a lot to see if I could corrupt the database. Basically, unless I deliberately mangled the container file, I couldn't get it to fail non-gracefully, even by turning of the power while writing the file. (This was not a full, rigorous failure study, but I've got a lot of them out there now, and although I get plenty of support calls a screwed-up database is never the root cause.) Just my experience... ~~ Mark Moulding ------------------------------ Message: 21 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 17:09:42 -0500 From: Jay Jaeger <cube1 at charter.net> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <56032326.30504 at charter.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 On 9/23/2015 4:27 PM, ben wrote: > On 9/23/2015 2:39 AM, ANDY HOLT wrote: >>> From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> >> >> ? >>> After all, languages are supposed to expose features >>> of the underlying machine to the programmer. >> >> Many believe that the purpose of languages is to HIDE (abstract) the >> underlying >> machine. > > The 60's idea that MACROS could do that seems to have faded away. > Ben. > > Yes, STAGE2 and friends pretty well faded out when LR grammars and parsers and parser generators became more widely understood and used. JRJ ------------------------------ Message: 22 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 00:15:10 +0100 From: Antonio Carlini <a.carlini at ntlworld.com> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?] Message-ID: <5603327E.3080107 at ntlworld.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed On 21/09/15 14:15, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: tony duell > > > In some cases it should be possible to write a machine code program > > that executes on 2 processors with wildly different instruciton > sets. > > I have this bit set that I was told (or something, the memory is _very_ > vague) that early versions of the KL-10 had this hack; the root block on > the > disk was the boot block both the PDP-10 and the PDP-11 front end machine, > and > the first instruction or two was very cleverly construced and sent the two > machines different ways. Alas, I looked in the front-end PDP-11 code (in > the > KLDCP; directory) and saw no signs of this, so maybe it was an urban > legend? > > I can't find a definitive reference right now, but I *think* that the ODS-1 disk format was first used on the PDP-11 and then later used in early versions of VMS. I *think* that it was arranged such that a PDP-11 booting and a VMS system booting could be done from the same disk by arranging for each to interpret the boot block in a way that each was happy with. Antonio arcarlini at iee.org ------------------------------ Message: 23 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:24:53 -0700 From: Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <560334C5.40102 at sydex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 09/23/2015 02:27 PM, ben wrote: > The 60's idea that MACROS could do that seems to have faded away. > Ben. It depends. One very handy method is to devise a machine architecture, complete with registers and opcodes, and write the application code in macros, creating instruction words--and then run them using a small emulator for the devised machine. After operation can be validated, re-code the macro bodies to generate native machine code instead of emulated fictitious machine instructions. A way to get certain tasks done very quickly. The C macro facility barely qualifies as such. PL/I had a wonderful preprocessor; some assemblers were similarly versatile. For example, I've used an assembler that boasted support of arrays of structures of user-defined data types. Now that was a macro facility. --Chuck ------------------------------ Message: 24 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 18:29:37 -0500 From: Jay Jaeger <cube1 at charter.net> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <560335E1.4070607 at charter.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 On 9/23/2015 6:24 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 09/23/2015 02:27 PM, ben wrote: > >> The 60's idea that MACROS could do that seems to have faded away. >> Ben. > > It depends. One very handy method is to devise a machine architecture, > complete with registers and opcodes, and write the application code in > macros, creating instruction words--and then run them using a small > emulator for the devised machine. > > After operation can be validated, re-code the macro bodies to generate > native machine code instead of emulated fictitious machine instructions. > > A way to get certain tasks done very quickly. > Shades of SIL for SNOBOL and also STAGE2. JRJ ------------------------------ Message: 25 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 00:38:34 +0100 From: Antonio Carlini <a.carlini at ntlworld.com> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?] Message-ID: <560337FA.70404 at ntlworld.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed On 21/09/15 01:55, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > > I used the above example when I created a CD which had files to be used > with RT-11 in addition to being a normal CD under Windows. I found that > for a normal CD under Windows, sectors 0 to 15 (hard disk blocks 0 to 63) > on the CD were empty. I don't know if that area is reserved for boot > code > under Windows when the CD is bootable, but my goal did not require the > CD to be bootable under Windows. I did something very similar (or rather, used someone else's code to do something very similar) with ODS-2 under OpenVMS and ISO9660 (which is what Windows uses for CD media iirc). As you say, ISO9660 leaves the first 16 (or thereabouts) 2048 byte blocks undefined. ODS-2, on the other hand, uses them. So the code builds an ISO9660 CD and then overlays the ODS-2 structure on top. It finds the ISO9660 directory structures and arranges for them to live in BADBLK.SYS so VMS is happy enough when mounting the media. All the ODS-2 structures get packed into the beginning of the image so anything looking at the ISO9660 side sees nothing untoward. This only works well for filetypes that have no special structure under ODS-2: basically CR-LF text files and binary formats (such as PDF). I still have a CD that I built this way many moons ago. I remember reading a message in one of the EASYnet NOTES conferences (inside DEC) which more or less said that ISO9660 leaving those initial blocks free wasn't a coincidence and that DEC's representative (Andy Goldstein perhaps) had pushed for that. Antonio arcarlini at iee.org ------------------------------ Message: 26 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:57:22 -0700 From: Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <56033C62.9040804 at sydex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 09/23/2015 04:29 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote: > Shades of SIL for SNOBOL and also STAGE2. The first time I did this was for translating COBOL to a special-purpose dialect. Not a simple lexical task--it was a full-blown two-pass affair. The initial test versions of the thing were very, very slow. Once the native-code version was rolled out, it was very, very fast. Development time was pretty fast. --Chuck ------------------------------ Message: 27 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 02:36:13 +0200 From: Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?] Message-ID: <5603457D.2070703 at update.uu.se> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 2015-09-24 01:15, Antonio Carlini wrote: > On 21/09/15 14:15, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> > From: tony duell >> >> > In some cases it should be possible to write a machine code >> program >> > that executes on 2 processors with wildly different instruciton >> sets. >> >> I have this bit set that I was told (or something, the memory is _very_ >> vague) that early versions of the KL-10 had this hack; the root block >> on the >> disk was the boot block both the PDP-10 and the PDP-11 front end >> machine, and >> the first instruction or two was very cleverly construced and sent the >> two >> machines different ways. Alas, I looked in the front-end PDP-11 code >> (in the >> KLDCP; directory) and saw no signs of this, so maybe it was an urban >> legend? >> >> > > I can't find a definitive reference right now, but I *think* that the > ODS-1 disk format > was first used on the PDP-11 and then later used in early versions of > VMS. I *think* > that it was arranged such that a PDP-11 booting and a VMS system booting > could > be done from the same disk by arranging for each to interpret the boot > block in > a way that each was happy with. I think that is incorrect, since early VMS didn't havea boot block. The VAX-11/780 was always booted from the PDP-11, and it started with VMB. VMB was gotten from the FE, and VMB in turn understood the file system. It wasn't until the VAX-11/750 that DEC did a VAX that used boot blocks. And then, of course, the boot block is just the first block(s) on the disk. Don't matter what file system you might have... Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol ------------------------------ Message: 28 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 17:52:23 -0700 From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: DDS SETASI SC44 info? Message-ID: <56034947.1090007 at gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed FYI, I've thrown up a couple of (cell phone) photos of the SC44 boards here: http://yahozna.dyndns.org/scratch/sc44/ I'll have the machine home in a few days and I'll be able to take better pictures then... - Josh On 9/23/15 2:40 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > Hi all -- > > I just added a PDP-11/44 to my collection and it appears to have some > manner of cache upgrade; it's made by Digital Data Systems (DDS) and > consists of two cards, one hex-height labeled "SC44 SETASI" (in the > place of the normal 11/44 cache board) and a second quad-height > labeled "1051" at the end of the first backplane. The two are > connected via a ribbon cable. > > I know DDS made some seriously nice upgrades for the 11/70 but I can't > find anything on this board set at all. I'm assuming it's just a > souped-up cache but it'd be nice to know more (and docs would be > excellent of course). > > Thanks, > Josh ------------------------------ Message: 29 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 20:54:53 -0400 From: Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <5209997D-E793-43B2-BC93-502F921078E3 at comcast.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > On Sep 23, 2015, at 7:24 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > > ... > The C macro facility barely qualifies as such. PL/I had a wonderful > preprocessor; That depends on the compiler. I remember the PL/C compiler (from Cornell, running on IBM 370s). In graduate school, we were forced to use it because the instructor was also the main author of that compiler. It was used in a compiler construction class, with heavy use of macros. That seemed fine except for one fatal flaw in the macro engine design. PL/I has the notion of "source margins" -- source code is only processed between colums 2 and 72 (by default; those limits are settable). The fatal flaw was that the PL/C macro processor sat before the source margin machinery, so it had to obey the source margins in doing macro expansion. Unfortunately, it couldn't do that. A typical result of attempting to use a complex macro was a compiler crash. To cure it, you'd add or remove spaces >from the macro call and/or the macro definition -- at which point you'd get a crash or compiler infinite loop at some other macro call. After a few weeks of that, we convinced the instructor to drop this bogus piece of software and switch to a real compiler -- Pascal on the PDP-10. paul ------------------------------ Message: 30 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 18:06:23 -0700 From: Zane Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <032919E9-8EAB-4E9E-9E73-7CB2DD29A25C at aracnet.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sam Ismail used to have a DPS-6, if not more than one, but I don't think he was ever able to do anything with it. Does it have GCOS-6 installed? I worked on DPS-8's and GCOS-8 a lifetime ago. I did a little with GCOS-6, mainly assisting with moving operations from DPS-6 Mini's over to HP 9000 workstations running DPS-6 emulators. I never had any GCOS-6 doc's and my GCOS-8 doc's were sent North a couple years ago. Zane On Sep 23, 2015, at 2:44 PM, Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> wrote: > Along with the 11/44 I also picked up a Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside > workstation; I can't seem to dig up much information specific to this > model > (a badge on the rear labels it as "Model/Index No. B01732"). I can take > some detailed pictures later this week after I've had time to clean it up > (it's very, very dirty), but it looks very similar to the DPS-6 unit > pictured on this site: > http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/projet/gcos6/gcos6.htm > > Anyone have any docs on this thing? Or fun anecdotes to share? What have > I gotten myself into with this thing? > > Thanks, > Josh ------------------------------ Message: 31 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 21:24:04 -0400 From: COURYHOUSE at aol.com To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <384aea.543ed142.4334aab4 at aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" there was a nightmare! In a message dated 9/23/2015 6:20:18 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, healyzh at aracnet.com writes: Sam Ismail used to have a DPS-6, if not more than one ------------------------------ Message: 32 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 18:27:03 -0700 From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: ISO: FP11-F (M7093) for PDP-11/44 Message-ID: <56035167.3030403 at gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed The 11/44 I acquired recently has a complete CPU set but no FP11-F board (M7093). I'd like to be able to run 2.11BSD (or other UNIX) on this machine, so having floating point hardware is pretty essential -- anyone have one going spare for sale/trade? Thanks as always, Josh ------------------------------ Message: 33 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 20:29:34 -0500 From: Paul Anderson <useddec at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: ISO: FP11-F (M7093) for PDP-11/44 Message-ID: <CACwhfuMWaZe_O=_rmZdOXJ3ufJiSpsvUKfQq86WeuvQ50H9wrg at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 I've got some here. Let me find it later tonight or tomorrow and I'll contact you off list. Paul On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> wrote: > The 11/44 I acquired recently has a complete CPU set but no FP11-F board > (M7093). I'd like to be able to run 2.11BSD (or other UNIX) on this > machine, so having floating point hardware is pretty essential -- anyone > have one going spare for sale/trade? > > Thanks as always, > Josh > > ------------------------------ Message: 34 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 21:48:59 -0400 From: Todd Goodman <tsg at bonedaddy.net> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: The desk has arrived - WAS: Somewhat OT: Freighting Items Message-ID: <20150924014858.GZ30683 at ns1.bonedaddy.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii * Ali <cctalk at fahimi.net> [150921 17:24]: > Well, > > In case anyone is still interested the desk arrived on Friday. The seller > did a very good job of packing it and it arrived in tact. Thanks to > everyone > for their input, tips, and bits of wisdom. BTW: If anyone is interested > you > can check out some quick pictures here: > > http://megacube.classiccmp.org/Synergetix/Synergetix.html > > The web page is very rudimentary and will be expanded. Once I get it > cleaned > up it will house an IBM 5150 A, a 5151, a 5152-002 and a Cipher 5120. > > -Ali Nice! Glad it arrived OK and was packed well by the seller! Todd ------------------------------ Message: 35 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 22:05:00 -0400 From: "Mike Stein" <mhs.stein at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Anyone recognize this bus/form factor? Message-ID: <D3E2DA8EFD034FC0B7CCD646F6CEE07B at 310e2> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="utf-8"; reply-type=original 68xx system, unusual (in my experience) 40-pin single row header bus. Anyone recognize it? https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jRSv5KbuziQ/VgNYaQ5j1gI/AAAAAAAAAXY/A5k2… ------------------------------ Message: 36 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 19:42:42 -0700 From: steve shumaker <shumaker at att.net> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <56036322.4010901 at att.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed On 9/23/2015 2:44 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > Along with the 11/44 I also picked up a Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside > workstation; I can't seem to dig up much information specific to this > model > (a badge on the rear labels it as "Model/Index No. B01732"). I can take > some detailed pictures later this week after I've had time to clean it up > (it's very, very dirty), but it looks very similar to the DPS-6 unit > pictured on this site: > http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/projet/gcos6/gcos6.htm > > Anyone have any docs on this thing? Or fun anecdotes to share? What have > I gotten myself into with this thing? > > Thanks, > Josh > > browse here and elsewhere for WWMMCCS history and beginnings of GCOS/DPS-6/Honeywell 6000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_Military_Command_and_Control_System One legend that gets trotted out whenever you speak of WWMMCCS is the cookie monster that was on terminals in the Pentagon installation of WWMMCCS. As the legend goes, at random intervals, the console would go blank, operators would loose control and a message would display something to the effect "cookie monster hungry - feed me". Supposedly once you typed in one of several cookie names, the routine would release the system back to the operator. I personally know a retired AF IT manager who worked WWMMCCS and swears its a true story... Suspect you will find very little material other than what Al has - it wasn't a particularly common installed setup. Steve ------------------------------ Message: 37 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 20:00:46 -0700 From: Zane Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <7F9F16AF-2C5D-477C-9EA9-700E1D517C34 at aracnet.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Sep 23, 2015, at 7:42 PM, steve shumaker <shumaker at att.net> wrote: > On 9/23/2015 2:44 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: >> Along with the 11/44 I also picked up a Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside >> workstation; I can't seem to dig up much information specific to this >> model >> (a badge on the rear labels it as "Model/Index No. B01732"). I can take >> some detailed pictures later this week after I've had time to clean it up >> (it's very, very dirty), but it looks very similar to the DPS-6 unit >> pictured on this site: >> http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/projet/gcos6/gcos6.htm >> >> Anyone have any docs on this thing? Or fun anecdotes to share? What >> have >> I gotten myself into with this thing? >> >> Thanks, >> Josh >> >> > browse here and elsewhere for WWMMCCS history and beginnings of > GCOS/DPS-6/Honeywell 6000 > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_Military_Command_and_Control_System > > > One legend that gets trotted out whenever you speak of WWMMCCS is the > cookie monster that was on terminals in the Pentagon installation of > WWMMCCS. As the legend goes, at random intervals, the console would go > blank, operators would loose control and a message would display something > to the effect "cookie monster hungry - feed me". Supposedly once you > typed in one of several cookie names, the routine would release the system > back to the operator. I personally know a retired AF IT manager who > worked WWMMCCS and swears its a true story... > > Suspect you will find very little material other than what Al has - it > wasn't a particularly common installed setup. > > Steve > DPS-8's, not 6's, and I for one don't believe that legend. Zane ------------------------------ Message: 38 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 20:03:47 -0700 From: Charles Anthony <charles.unix.pro at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <CANV78LRbu0e8K4-BPtacmdFdN6v--Nf9qdeNWu7vRtmpcngaLQ at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 8:00 PM, Zane Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > > On Sep 23, 2015, at 7:42 PM, steve shumaker <shumaker at att.net> wrote: > > > One legend that gets trotted out whenever you speak of WWMMCCS is the > cookie monster that was on terminals in the Pentagon installation of > WWMMCCS. As the legend goes, at random intervals, the console would go > blank, operators would loose control and a message would display something > to the effect "cookie monster hungry - feed me". Supposedly once you > typed in one of several cookie names, the routine would release the system > back to the operator. I personally know a retired AF IT manager who > worked WWMMCCS and swears its a true story... > > > > Suspect you will find very little material other than what Al has - it > wasn't a particularly common installed setup. > > > > Steve > > > > DPS-8's, not 6's, and I for one don't believe that legend. > > I don't know about the legend, but the cookie program originated on the DPS-8: http://www.multicians.org/cookie.html -- Charles ------------------------------ Message: 39 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 20:04:36 -0700 From: Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <56036844.8040006 at sydex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 09/23/2015 05:54 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > >> On Sep 23, 2015, at 7:24 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: >> >> ... >> The C macro facility barely qualifies as such. PL/I had a wonderful >> preprocessor; > > That depends on the compiler. Well, IBM did have a real PL/I compiler (after all, they invented the stuff)--and later, there was an ANSI PL/I. --Chuck ------------------------------ Message: 40 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 15:43:37 +1200 From: Mike Ross <tmfdmike at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Anyone recognize this bus/form factor? Message-ID: <CAPhLQbMwe7CEQ8NY+G=DQ40mT9UV+4g406S=93jDVEXLS+xWOg at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 That's odd. I can't say for sure but... it has the feel of something that might have belonged in a terminal or keyboard... character generator or something... stab in the dark really. Mike On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Mike Stein <mhs.stein at gmail.com> wrote: > 68xx system, unusual (in my experience) 40-pin > single row header bus. > > Anyone recognize it? > > https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jRSv5KbuziQ/VgNYaQ5j1gI/AAAAAAAAAXY/A5k2… > -- http://www.corestore.org 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.' ------------------------------ Message: 41 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 22:53:43 -0500 From: Adrian Stoness <tdk.knight at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Anyone recognize this bus/form factor? Message-ID: <CAA3rs22vN79V_-NnipY=nL0AQZiu7pJH-1k+=vs-4q3ZTC2Zqw at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 heathkit? On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:43 PM, Mike Ross <tmfdmike at gmail.com> wrote: > That's odd. > > I can't say for sure but... it has the feel of something that might > have belonged in a terminal or keyboard... character generator or > something... stab in the dark really. > > Mike > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Mike Stein <mhs.stein at gmail.com> wrote: > > 68xx system, unusual (in my experience) 40-pin > > single row header bus. > > > > Anyone recognize it? > > > > > https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jRSv5KbuziQ/VgNYaQ5j1gI/AAAAAAAAAXY/A5k2… > > > > > > -- > > http://www.corestore.org > 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. > Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. > For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.' > ------------------------------ Message: 42 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 23:22:59 -0600 From: Eric Smith <spacewar at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <CAFrGgTQ8=KQ5+DWXqj_SstbnH3Pj6xRFSd-BHe4yFd=gghOUag at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Jay Jaeger <cube1 at charter.net> wrote: > An int just has to be able to store numbers of a certain magnitude. > Same with long. You do have to be able to convert between longs (and > possibly ints) and addresses (*). So, you make an int 5 digits (which > matches the natural length of addresses) and longs something like 10 > digits. You don't have to simulate anything, near as I can tell. Then > the length of an int is 5 and a long is 10 (instead of the more typical > 2 and 4). And the length of a char? It's required that all types other than bitfields be fully represented as multiple chars, not e.g. an int being two and a half chars, and a char has to cover at least the range 0..255, or -128..127, and it has to have a range based on a power of two. ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?3.6 ?1 - a byte has to hold any member of the basic character set ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?3.7.1 ?1 - a character is a C bit representation that fits in a byte ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?5.2.4.2.1 ?1 - the size of a char is CHAR_BIT bits, which is at least 8 ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?6.2.6.1 ?2-4 - everything other than bitfields consists of bytes ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?6.2.6.1 ?5 - Some data types other than char may have machine representations that can't use all of the possible bit patterns of the storage allocated; those representations are called "trap representations". The char (and unsigned char) types can't have trap representations. ISO/IEC 9899:199(E) ?6.2.6.2 ?1 - unsigned integer types must have a range of 0 to (2^n)-1, for some natural number n. ISO/IEC 9899:199(E) ?6.2.6.2 ?2 - signed integer types must have a range of -(2^n) to (2^n)-1 or -((2^n)-1) to (2^n)-1. On a decimal machine, if you use three digits for a char, you have to arrange that all your other types are multiples of three digits, with each three-digit group only using valid char representations, because accessing a char/byte out of a larger integer type is not allowed to be a trap representation, because chars can't have a trap representation. If an unsigned char is three digits with values from 0..255, an unsigned int can't be five digits. It has to be six digits, and the only valid representations for it would have values of 0..65535. It can't have any valid values in the range of 65536..999999. ------------------------------ Message: 43 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 01:23:11 -0400 From: william degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Anyone recognize this bus/form factor? Message-ID: <CABGJBuegdj6gxxuh=pfqmUkvKgvuPO-O67x-JkeMkgqJKeqpYw at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Looks like an add on or daughter board. Bill Degnan twitter: billdeg vintagecomputer.net On Sep 23, 2015 11:53 PM, "Adrian Stoness" <tdk.knight at gmail.com> wrote: > heathkit? > > On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:43 PM, Mike Ross <tmfdmike at gmail.com> wrote: > > > That's odd. > > > > I can't say for sure but... it has the feel of something that might > > have belonged in a terminal or keyboard... character generator or > > something... stab in the dark really. > > > > Mike > > > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Mike Stein <mhs.stein at gmail.com> wrote: > > > 68xx system, unusual (in my experience) 40-pin > > > single row header bus. > > > > > > Anyone recognize it? > > > > > > > > > https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jRSv5KbuziQ/VgNYaQ5j1gI/AAAAAAAAAXY/A5k2… > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > > http://www.corestore.org > > 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. > > Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. > > For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.' > > > ------------------------------ Message: 44 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 17:52:39 -0400 From: Sean Caron <scaron at umich.edu> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>, Sean Caron <scaron at umich.edu> Subject: Re: DDS SETASI SC44 info? Message-ID: <CAA43vkUFNLHRw1sbw_0hrqJpHdq0xyUcTJC_s+W5YS+=b11nGQ at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Any easy way to post pics of the top side of both boards? I can't definitively ID them but we should be able to make a good guess as to what's actually on there looking at all the major ICs... Did you just buy this? :O http://vintagetech.com/sales/Big%20Iron/PDP%2011-44/Information Best, Sean On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 5:40 PM, Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all -- > > I just added a PDP-11/44 to my collection and it appears to have some > manner of cache upgrade; it's made by Digital Data Systems (DDS) and > consists of two cards, one hex-height labeled "SC44 SETASI" (in the place > of the normal 11/44 cache board) and a second quad-height labeled "1051" > at > the end of the first backplane. The two are connected via a ribbon cable. > > I know DDS made some seriously nice upgrades for the 11/70 but I can't > find > anything on this board set at all. I'm assuming it's just a souped-up > cache but it'd be nice to know more (and docs would be excellent of > course). > > Thanks, > Josh > ------------------------------ Message: 45 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 17:56:07 -0400 From: Sean Caron <scaron at umich.edu> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>, Sean Caron <scaron at umich.edu> Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <CAA43vkWd1NHC3=t6xtVOb8fg7dc1qxOO2ySh_=h1zr21-eRVnw at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Ah, so these are the vintagetech.com machines! Please take lots of pics of the DPS-8 inside and out; I've never really seen the innards of a Honeywell machine before and I'm kind of curious what their "style" looks like. Best, Sean On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 5:47 PM, Dave G4UGM <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> wrote: > Many years ago we used them as Data Entry machines, but I have no > documents and have forgotten everything I knew. > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Josh > > Dersch > > Sent: 23 September 2015 22:45 > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > Subject: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? > > > > Along with the 11/44 I also picked up a Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside > > workstation; I can't seem to dig up much information specific to this > model (a > > badge on the rear labels it as "Model/Index No. B01732"). I can take > some > > detailed pictures later this week after I've had time to clean it up > (it's very, > > very dirty), but it looks very similar to the DPS-6 unit pictured on > this site: > > http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/projet/gcos6/gcos6.htm > > > > Anyone have any docs on this thing? Or fun anecdotes to share? What > have > > I gotten myself into with this thing? > > > > Thanks, > > Josh > > ------------------------------ Message: 46 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:18:03 +1000 From: steven at malikoff.com To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" <cctech at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Thoughts on manual database design? Message-ID: <38f04b0e735cffb635b13834dcaee682.squirrel at webmail04.register.com> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8 Not sure why you have VARCHARs for primary keys, why not use the conventional auto-increment int so you can dispense with the LastGeneratedArtifactID table. CREATE TABLE Manual_Artifact ( ArtifactID INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, . . . other fields . . . CONSTRAINT ArtifactID_pk PRIMARY KEY (ArtifactID) ) You'll also need similar type primary keys on your other tables, and also set up the foreign key constraints for your db integrity if you really want to go that far for this project. Some of those tables could be coalesced to simplify the thing - as per the inane comment from the guy in Holland (or wherever) for instance the Location and Manual_Type tables. Another thing, although MySQL is fine but for this I think SQLite might be a better choice of db. Its access methods are all in-process ie. no external dbms service to bother with, just a library to link in and the physical database is a disk file (.s3db extension). It has a much 'lighter' db footprint. Steve. ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: Re: Thoughts on manual database design? From: "Jay Jaeger" <cube1 at charter.net> Date: Thu, September 24, 2015 6:52 am To: cctech at classiccmp.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > If anyone cares a draft data model is visible at: > > http://webpages.charter.net/thecomputercollection/misc/manualmodel.pdf > > (It may change as I work on the design). > > Biggest change from earlier discussions: I found no reason not to merge > the manuals/artifacts relationship table into the artifact table, and I > reduced the primary key columns down to only those absolutely necessary > to guarantee uniqueness. > > JRJ > > ------------------------------ Message: 47 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 08:39:17 +0200 From: Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: DDS SETASI SC44 info? Message-ID: <20150924063916.GA32087 at Update.UU.SE> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii archive.org almost has some info: http://web.archive.org/web/19990908232518/http://www.setasi.com/DECPP.html It's a "Super Cache". Perhaps you could track down someone from Setasi? See the mention here: ftp://ftp.dbit.com/pub/pdp11/faq/faq.pages/vendors.html /P On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 02:40:14PM -0700, Josh Dersch wrote: > Hi all -- > > I just added a PDP-11/44 to my collection and it appears to have some > manner of cache upgrade; it's made by Digital Data Systems (DDS) and > consists of two cards, one hex-height labeled "SC44 SETASI" (in the place > of the normal 11/44 cache board) and a second quad-height labeled "1051" > at > the end of the first backplane. The two are connected via a ribbon cable. > > I know DDS made some seriously nice upgrades for the 11/70 but I can't > find > anything on this board set at all. I'm assuming it's just a souped-up > cache but it'd be nice to know more (and docs would be excellent of > course). > > Thanks, > Josh ------------------------------ Message: 48 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 00:02:56 -0700 From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: DDS SETASI SC44 info? Message-ID: <5603A020.1060000 at gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 9/23/15 2:52 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Any easy way to post pics of the top side of both boards? I can't > definitively ID them but we should be able to make a good guess as to > what's actually on there looking at all the major ICs... Yeah, I took some pictures this afternoon (a bit blurry -- it was dark and all I had was my cell phone, I'll try to get better pics tomorrow): http://yahozna.dyndns.org/scratch/sc44/ > > Did you just buy this? :O > > http://vintagetech.com/sales/Big%20Iron/PDP%2011-44/Information Yep :). - Josh > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 5:40 PM, Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hi all -- >> >> I just added a PDP-11/44 to my collection and it appears to have some >> manner of cache upgrade; it's made by Digital Data Systems (DDS) and >> consists of two cards, one hex-height labeled "SC44 SETASI" (in the place >> of the normal 11/44 cache board) and a second quad-height labeled "1051" >> at >> the end of the first backplane. The two are connected via a ribbon >> cable. >> >> I know DDS made some seriously nice upgrades for the 11/70 but I can't >> find >> anything on this board set at all. I'm assuming it's just a souped-up >> cache but it'd be nice to know more (and docs would be excellent of >> course). >> >> Thanks, >> Josh >> ------------------------------ Message: 49 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 01:04:59 -0600 From: ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <5603A09B.3050706 at jetnet.ab.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 9/23/2015 11:22 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?3.6 ?1 - a byte has to hold any member of the > basic character set > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?3.7.1 ?1 - a character is a C bit representation > that fits in a byte > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?5.2.4.2.1 ?1 - the size of a char is CHAR_BIT > bits, which is at least 8 > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?6.2.6.1 ?2-4 - everything other than bitfields > consists of bytes Bla Bla Bla ... What happened to seven bit ASCII? I think the major change in C from the OTHER programing languages is BYTE addressing. Even Pascal from what I have seen packs characters in words of some kind. That is main dividing line in how memory can be accessed. char *ptr++ vs array(foo-1) 0-99 can hold a trimmed character set and 10 digits per int. 5 chars per word sounds right on decimal machine. Logic operations would be on the digit rather the binary level. This may not be standard C but I has the early PDP 11 C feel if they I developed UNIX on decimal machine. Ben. ------------------------------ Message: 50 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 00:10:32 -0700 From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <5603A1E8.3060903 at gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 9/23/15 2:56 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Ah, so these are the vintagetech.com machines! Please take lots of pics of > the DPS-8 inside and out; I've never really seen the innards of a > Honeywell > machine before and I'm kind of curious what their "style" looks like. > > Best, > > Sean Will do. I took the boards out to inspect them tonight (they had rattled about a bit during shipment) and everything seems ok. I'll have time to take some pictures this weekend. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line someone disconnected nearly all the ribbon cables running to the boards and I've got no idea what goes where (only a couple are cohesively labeled.) This thing is going to be a project. - Josh ------------------------------ Message: 51 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 03:53:58 -0400 From: COURYHOUSE at aol.com To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <a1cb0.44c5458a.43350616 at aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" is it a dps 6 or 8? In a message dated 9/24/2015 12:10:41 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, derschjo at gmail.com writes: On 9/23/15 2:56 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Ah, so these are the vintagetech.com machines! Please take lots of pics of > the DPS-8 inside and out; I've never really seen the innards of a Honeywell > machine before and I'm kind of curious what their "style" looks like. > > Best, > > Sean Will do. I took the boards out to inspect them tonight (they had rattled about a bit during shipment) and everything seems ok. I'll have time to take some pictures this weekend. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line someone disconnected nearly all the ribbon cables running to the boards and I've got no idea what goes where (only a couple are cohesively labeled.) This thing is going to be a project. - Josh ------------------------------ Message: 52 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:20:02 +0100 From: "Dave G4UGM" <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: RE: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <084601d0f6aa$3209f150$961dd3f0$(a)gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" The DPS6 is a very different animal to the GE600 -> GE6000 > Level 66 => DPS300 which were as far as I know all TTL or LSI TTL.... ... The CPU was built on wire wrap boards which were around 14" or 16" square (say 35cm) and which slotted into a backplane. .. the machines had an extensive test suite which the CE ran weekly. This could vary the voltages to the logic chips.... .. when a faulty board was found they were usually repaired on-site, there was a board tester shipped with each system to identify chip level faults. .. this contrasts with the earlier H3200 we had which was fixed by board level repair.. The CPU and Memory were in separate cabinets, much like the 360/67 but Honeywell kept the same layout when moving from core (I think the GE6000/H6000 were core) on to D-Ram in the L66. The CPU number and I think the RAM start addresses were all configured on switchs, so it was possible to split a Dual CPU machine into two singles for testing. The peripherals came from MPI a joint venture with CDC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Data_Corporation#Magnetic_Peripherals…. There are more ramblings, (not from me) here:- http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/english/gecos_to_gcos8_part_2.htm The GCOS-3 Control Cards and Abort Codes Pocket Guide DD04 Rev.0 is sat on my desk in the scanning queue... Dave > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Josh > Dersch > Sent: 24 September 2015 08:11 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? > > On 9/23/15 2:56 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > > Ah, so these are the vintagetech.com machines! Please take lots of > > pics of the DPS-8 inside and out; I've never really seen the innards > > of a Honeywell machine before and I'm kind of curious what their "style" > looks like. > > > > Best, > > > > Sean > > Will do. I took the boards out to inspect them tonight (they had rattled > about > a bit during shipment) and everything seems ok. I'll have time to take > some > pictures this weekend. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line someone > disconnected nearly all the ribbon cables running to the boards and I've > got > no idea what goes where (only a couple are cohesively labeled.) This > thing is > going to be a project. > > - Josh > ------------------------------ Message: 53 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:41:35 +0200 From: Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Regarding Manuals Message-ID: <20150924094135.GB32087 at Update.UU.SE> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi I have more manuals than I really have room for. Lots and lots of VMS binders and softcover books. And now my employer is throwing out box upon box of SUN, Ultrix, tru64 and various literature. I'm trying to save what I think is useful and/or worth preserving. But It's damn hard to decide and damn hard to motivate filling up every inch of precious space. At the moment I thinking about just looking the other way and throw what is not directly useful to me. What is a collector/hoarder to do? Anyone who wants to turn up with a truck and fill with dead trees? Regards, Pontus. ------------------------------ Message: 54 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 19:44:23 +1000 From: Nigel Williams <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com> To: cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Regarding Manuals Message-ID: <F0214D71-4B97-4CF9-9A8A-CD39406E25FE at retrocomputingtasmania.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > On 24 Sep 2015, at 7:41 pm, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote: > ...And now my employer is throwing out box > upon box of SUN, Ultrix, tru64 and various literature. Is it practical/possible to make a list of what is available and to crowd-source out to the cctalk community to check whether copies exist online or due for scanning? that might cut down the volume worth keeping. ------------------------------ Message: 55 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:51:54 +0200 From: Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Regarding Manuals Message-ID: <20150924095154.GA9183 at Update.UU.SE> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 07:44:23PM +1000, Nigel Williams wrote: > > > On 24 Sep 2015, at 7:41 pm, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote: > > ...And now my employer is throwing out box > > upon box of SUN, Ultrix, tru64 and various literature. > > Is it practical/possible to make a list of what is available and to > crowd-source out to the cctalk community to check whether copies exist > online or due for scanning? that might cut down the volume worth > keeping. It would be a lot of work. For the VMS stuff I have started indexing. I suppose I should run the list through manx at least. Having an automatic tool for that is tempting to make. /P ------------------------------ Message: 56 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 12:16:06 +0200 From: "Mazzini Alessandro" <mazzinia at tin.it> To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: R: Regarding Manuals Message-ID: <006001d0f6b2$06a4f570$13eee050$(a)tin.it> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Crying at the prospect of the waste :( (from someone that had the chance of saving just a set of X-Open manuals) -----Messaggio originale----- Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di Pontus Pihlgren Inviato: gioved? 24 settembre 2015 11:42 A: cctalk at classiccmp.org Oggetto: Regarding Manuals Hi I have more manuals than I really have room for. Lots and lots of VMS binders and softcover books. And now my employer is throwing out box upon box of SUN, Ultrix, tru64 and various literature. I'm trying to save what I think is useful and/or worth preserving. But It's damn hard to decide and damn hard to motivate filling up every inch of precious space. At the moment I thinking about just looking the other way and throw what is not directly useful to me. What is a collector/hoarder to do? Anyone who wants to turn up with a truck and fill with dead trees? Regards, Pontus. ------------------------------ Message: 57 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 07:10:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: C out of its comfort zone - Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code Message-ID: <201509241110.HAA04206 at Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > Well, there are plenty of word-but-not-byte/character addressable > machines out there, which makes life interesting for the likes of C. C is able to support them just fine, though a whole lot of C code isn't (beacuse it assumes things like "all pointers are the same size", or even more specifically, "all pointers are just memory addresses"). Such machines typically just have void * and char * occupying more space than pointers to word-and-larger types. > One thing that I've wondered about is "does the current HLL-du-juor > dictate processor architecture?"--and not the reverse. Dictate, probably not quite. Influence, certainly. > Does anyone consider a machine that doesn't implement any sort of > hardware stack, for example, a marketplace contender? I don't, for the simple reason that I don't know of any that aren't, by today's standards, ludicrously slow. If a hypothetical machine were to be released that didn't have stack support of some sort in hardware (even if just autodecrement and autoincrement addressing modes - for example, the Super-H)? I'd want to know what it had that made its maker think it worth making despite that. However, I have trouble imagining a machine on which it is difficult to implement a stack. Even the machines of old which "didn't have stacks" generally had (what we would today call) addressing modes that made it possible to implement them without too much pain. (What they usually didn't have was an easy way to get procedure call return addresses onto the stack, like one I remember hearing of whose call instruction stored the return address just before the beginning of the called procedure. While I don't know any such machines well enough to be sure, I would imagine a return stack could be maintained there by slightly complicating the procedurecall and return sequences - in this crowd, I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong! :-) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B ------------------------------ Message: 58 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 05:35:54 -0700 From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Regarding Manuals Message-ID: <5603EE2A.8020308 at bitsavers.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 9/24/15 2:41 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > Hi > > I have more manuals than I really have room for. Lots and lots of VMS > binders and softcover books. And now my employer is throwing out box > upon box of SUN, Ultrix, tru64 and various literature. > I'd like to get a set of SunOS 1.x manuals to fill out what I just uploaded to bitsavers, and any manuals for SunOS layered products that I haven't already uploaded. Hoping they still had manuals that old. ------------------------------ Message: 59 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 14:53:15 +0200 From: Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Regarding Manuals Message-ID: <20150924125315.GC9183 at Update.UU.SE> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 05:35:54AM -0700, Al Kossow wrote: > On 9/24/15 2:41 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > >Hi > > > >I have more manuals than I really have room for. Lots and lots of VMS > >binders and softcover books. And now my employer is throwing out box > >upon box of SUN, Ultrix, tru64 and various literature. > > > > I'd like to get a set of SunOS 1.x manuals to fill out what I just > uploaded to bitsavers, and any manuals for SunOS layered products > that > I haven't already uploaded. Hoping they still had manuals that old. > I think the oldest I have seen from Sun is from 1987 or 88. Is that old enough? /P ------------------------------ Message: 60 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:16:20 -0400 From: Toby Thain <toby at telegraphics.com.au> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <5603F7A4.60808 at telegraphics.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 2015-09-24 3:04 AM, ben wrote: > On 9/23/2015 11:22 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > >> ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?3.6 ?1 - a byte has to hold any member of the >> basic character set >> ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?3.7.1 ?1 - a character is a C bit representation >> that fits in a byte >> ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?5.2.4.2.1 ?1 - the size of a char is CHAR_BIT >> bits, which is at least 8 >> ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?6.2.6.1 ?2-4 - everything other than bitfields >> consists of bytes > > Bla Bla Bla ... > What happened to seven bit ASCII? > I think the major change in C from the OTHER programing languages > is BYTE addressing. Even Pascal from what I have seen packs characters > in words of some kind. That is main dividing line in how memory > can be accessed. char *ptr++ vs array(foo-1) Depends on the Pascal. Apple chose (Object) Pascal as its principal systems and applications programming language for at least a decade (Lisa, 68K Mac, etc), and its memory addressing capabilities, in particular byte arrays, were equivalent to C's. Many other Pascals had similar extensions (I seem to recall Turbo Pascal did). --Toby > > 0-99 can hold a trimmed character set and 10 digits per int. > 5 chars per word sounds right on decimal machine. > Logic operations would be on the digit rather the binary > level. This may not be standard C but I has the early > PDP 11 C feel if they I developed UNIX on decimal machine. > > Ben. > > > > > > ------------------------------ Message: 61 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:06:51 -0400 From: "Mike Stein" <mhs.stein at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Anyone recognize this bus/form factor? Message-ID: <D3A61F3A56BA41069507A1E2A18B491F at 310e2> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original Found a few more boards; I guess the displays, optocouplers and surge suppressors suggest an industrial system of some sort, perhaps custom or limited production. Wonder why that type of connector wasn't used more often for a bus instead of presumably more expensive edge connectors; I think I do have some (CDC?) boards that are the opposite, i.e. pins plugging into sockets on the backplane. https://picasaweb.google.com/115794482077177620188/Mystery68xxCards?authkey… ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Ross" <tmfdmike at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 11:43 PM Subject: Re: Anyone recognize this bus/form factor? > That's odd. > > I can't say for sure but... it has the feel of > something that might > have belonged in a terminal or keyboard... > character generator or > something... stab in the dark really. > > Mike > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Mike Stein > <mhs.stein at gmail.com> wrote: >> 68xx system, unusual (in my experience) 40-pin >> single row header bus. >> >> Anyone recognize it? >> >> https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jRSv5KbuziQ/VgNYaQ5j1gI/AAAAAAAAAXY/A5k2… >> > > > > -- > > http://www.corestore.org > 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his > life for his brother. > Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. > For one person, in the dark, where no one will > ever know or see.' ------------------------------ Message: 62 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:00:47 -0500 From: Jay Jaeger <cube1 at charter.net> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <5604101F.2090207 at charter.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 On 9/24/2015 12:22 AM, Eric Smith wrote: > On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Jay Jaeger <cube1 at charter.net> wrote: >> An int just has to be able to store numbers of a certain magnitude. >> Same with long. You do have to be able to convert between longs (and >> possibly ints) and addresses (*). So, you make an int 5 digits (which >> matches the natural length of addresses) and longs something like 10 >> digits. You don't have to simulate anything, near as I can tell. Then >> the length of an int is 5 and a long is 10 (instead of the more typical >> 2 and 4). > > And the length of a char? It's required that all types other than > bitfields be fully represented as multiple chars, not e.g. an int > being two and a half chars, and a char has to cover at least the range > 0..255, or -128..127, and it has to have a range based on a power of > two. > > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?3.6 ?1 - a byte has to hold any member of the > basic character set > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?3.7.1 ?1 - a character is a C bit representation > that fits in a byte > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?5.2.4.2.1 ?1 - the size of a char is CHAR_BIT > bits, which is at least 8 > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?6.2.6.1 ?2-4 - everything other than bitfields > consists of bytes > > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?6.2.6.1 ?5 - Some data types other than char may > have machine representations that can't use all of the possible bit > patterns of the storage allocated; those representations are called > "trap representations". The char (and unsigned char) types can't have > trap representations. > > ISO/IEC 9899:199(E) ?6.2.6.2 ?1 - unsigned integer types must have a > range of 0 to (2^n)-1, for some natural number n. > ISO/IEC 9899:199(E) ?6.2.6.2 ?2 - signed integer types must have a > range of -(2^n) to (2^n)-1 or -((2^n)-1) to (2^n)-1. > > On a decimal machine, if you use three digits for a char, you have to > arrange that all your other types are multiples of three digits, with > each three-digit group only using valid char representations, because > accessing a char/byte out of a larger integer type is not allowed to > be a trap representation, because chars can't have a trap > representation. I don't *have* to do any such thing. > > If an unsigned char is three digits with values from 0..255, an > unsigned int can't be five digits. It has to be six digits, and the > only valid representations for it would have values of 0..65535. It > can't have any valid values in the range of 65536..999999. > It does not *have* to be six digits. You seem to be supposing that I said one could/would implement ANSI/ISO C on a 1410 in native code (as opposed to some kind of binary threaded-code simulator that has been suggested). I did not. I said C, and by that I meant something presumably contemporary with the machine in its last years. I would not suggest that one would implement ANSI/ISO C on such a machine, any more than I would expect to implement current versions of FORTRAN on such a machine. Heck, there wasn't even a FORTRAN IV for the 1410. I would expect a char to be 6 or 7 bits on a 1410 - one storage character, rather than 8 (one could conceivably use the word-mark for a char bit to get 7 bits, and it would make some sense to do so, but if abused (say, by accessing an int as char [5]) could result in a wordmark in the middle of an int, which it would be good to avoid if at all possible to avoid having to move integer types to an intermediate storage location using record marks to terminate the move rather than wordmarks). An int would be 5 characters long. If one goes back to the definition of C in "The C Programming Language", then one sees a less restrictive specification the the contemporary ANSI/ISO specification. The restrictions of ANSI/ISO C came later because of things that folks tended to assume and do in their C programs because of the hardware it typically ran on, i.e., that chars were capable of holding 8 bit binary numbers. "Objects declared as characters (char) are large enough to store any member of the implementation's character set, and if a genuine character >from that character set is stored in a character variable, its *value* is *equivalent* to the integer code for that character. Other values may be stored into character variables, but the implementation is machine-dependent." (asterisk emphasis added). "Equivalent" is extremely important here, as it frees one from the notion of it having to be the exact same bit representation. It means that if you cast from char to int (access it as a value), or pass a char as a formal parameter, the int gets the value of the character as a set of bits, and vice versa. It does NOT require that the int be the *identical* bits as the char. Common practice is, of course, to use chars to store small, but still useful, integer values, in this case, -32 to +31 (6 bits) or -64 to +63 (7 bits)). Would this break some programs that assume a char can hold values from -127 to 127? Of course. Would those programs be "fixable" to the extent that they were not dependent upon machine I/O hardware and the like? Yes, they should be. ""Plain" integers have the natural size suggested by the host machine architecture". Thus one would end up with a C char type which is only slightly different from FORTRAN CHARACTER variables, but which can still store small integer values in the spirit of C. Enough already. JRJ ------------------------------ Message: 63 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:11:16 -0500 From: Jay Jaeger <cube1 at charter.net> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <56041294.1060803 at charter.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 On 9/24/2015 2:04 AM, ben wrote: > On 9/23/2015 11:22 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > > > 0-99 can hold a trimmed character set and 10 digits per int. > 5 chars per word sounds right on decimal machine. > Logic operations would be on the digit rather the binary > level. On a 1410 (or 1401) 0-63 can hold the entire character set using char/int conversion instead of storing chars as their native bits, and then we have 5 digits per int as the native integer size (size of an address). 0-127 would be required to hold a character with a work mark bit, which I think one would probably want to make available at a character level, but try and avoid having them set inside of ints. Also, on a 1410 or a 1401 with the right optional features, bitwise operations (bitwise &^|) could still be carried out on a binary level without undue difficulty. As you say, logic operations (&&, ||) would presumably use int 0 and 1 - but could still be carried out on a binary level. >This may not be standard C but I has the early > PDP 11 C feel if they I developed UNIX on decimal machine. > > Ben. > Precisely. JRJ ------------------------------ Message: 64 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:23:55 -0500 From: Chris Elmquist <chrise at pobox.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Anyone recognize this bus/form factor? Message-ID: <20150924152355.GQ4403 at n0jcf.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Thursday (09/24/2015 at 10:06AM -0400), Mike Stein wrote: > Found a few more boards; I guess the displays, optocouplers and surge > suppressors suggest an industrial system of some sort, perhaps custom or > limited production. > > Wonder why that type of connector wasn't used more often for a bus instead > of presumably more expensive edge connectors; I think I do have some > (CDC?) > boards that are the opposite, i.e. pins plugging into sockets on the > backplane. > > https://picasaweb.google.com/115794482077177620188/Mystery68xxCards?authkey… Those are the same connectors used on the Heathkit H8 and H89 backplanes but those are definitely not cards that plug into the backplane of either of those machines. Chris -- Chris Elmquist ------------------------------ Message: 65 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:06:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1509240856460.309 at shell.lmi.net> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed On Wed, 23 Sep 2015, Eric Smith wrote: > And the length of a char? It's required that all types other than > bitfields be fully represented as multiple chars, not e.g. an int > being two and a half chars, and a char has to cover at least the range > 0..255, or -128..127, and it has to have a range based on a power of > two. > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?3.6 ?1 . . . > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?3.7.1 ?1 . . . > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?5.2.4.2.1 ?1 . . . > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?6.2.6.1 ?2-4 - everything other than bitfields > consists of bytes > ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E) ?6.2.6.1 ?5 - Some data types other than char may > ISO/IEC 9899:199(E) ?6.2.6.2 ?1 - unsigned integer types must have a > ISO/IEC 9899:199(E) ?6.2.6.2 ?2 - signed integer types must have a > On a decimal machine, if you use three digits for a char, you have to > arrange that all your other types are multiples of three digits, with > each three-digit group only using valid char representations, because > accessing a char/byte out of a larger integer type is not allowed to > be a trap representation, because chars can't have a trap > representation. > If an unsigned char is three digits with values from 0..255, an > unsigned int can't be five digits. It has to be six digits, and the > only valid representations for it would have values of 0..65535. It > can't have any valid values in the range of 65536..999999. The original "challenge" just said "C". THAT is all ANSI C. K&R C did not have those limitations. If you wanted to build a C with a 7 bit short, a 13 bit int, and a 19 bit long, it was OK. Only limits were that the sizeof an int couldn't be smaller than the size of a short, sizeof a long couldn't be less than that of an int, etc. I am not claiming that I could create a C compiler for 1401/1410, but these restrictions only preclude ANSI C. Note: I am also not saying that doing so would be a good idea. ------------------------------ Message: 66 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:08:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1509240907080.309 at shell.lmi.net> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed On Thu, 24 Sep 2015, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > is it a dps 6 or 8? I am actually sincerely sorry that you are having another migraine that causes you to press the spacebar. But, I do have to point out that it makes you sound like William Shatner. ------------------------------ Message: 67 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 12:55:41 -0400 From: COURYHOUSE at aol.com To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info? Message-ID: <aaf55.450df234.4335850b at aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" pretty funny! maybe I should be fortunate enough to have his salary also!? #ed In a message dated 9/24/2015 9:08:48 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cisin at xenosoft.com writes: On Thu, 24 Sep 2015, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > is it a dps 6 or 8? I am actually sincerely sorry that you are having another migraine that causes you to press the spacebar. But, I do have to point out that it makes you sound like William Shatner. End of cctalk Digest, Vol 15, Issue 24 **************************************

10 years, 8 months

3
2
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DDS SETASI SC44 info?

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- I just added a PDP-11/44 to my collection and it appears to have some manner of cache upgrade; it's made by Digital Data Systems (DDS) and consists of two cards, one hex-height labeled "SC44 SETASI" (in the place of the normal 11/44 cache board) and a second quad-height labeled "1051" at the end of the first backplane. The two are connected via a ribbon cable. I know DDS made some seriously nice upgrades for the 11/70 but I can't find anything on this board set at all. I'm assuming it's just a souped-up cache but it'd be nice to know more (and docs would be excellent of course). Thanks, Josh

10 years, 8 months

3
6
0 0

would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

probably an artifact generated by my migraine this evening . In a message dated 9/22/2015 8:39:34 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cisin at xenosoft.com writes: On Tue, 22 Sep 2015, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > I see you have one of those small reel tape drives also like we do > in our s20... what is the interface on them? what BPI ? who actually > made them? rather off-topic: is your space bar sticking? Seems like a lot of keybounce.

10 years, 8 months

3
2
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Free: IBM RT Monitors near Chicago

by silent700＠gmail.com

2x IBM 5081-16 CRT monitors. 3x BNC input and output. Unknown sync rates, may be specific to RT output, may not. Assumed working but unable to test. Don't want to scrap them but can't hang on to them much longer. You pick up or arrange pickup in 60070. J

10 years, 8 months

1
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cctalk Digest, Vol 15, Issue 24

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwncwOG8-HY Fun - a BBC this is your life with Shatner - ed# In a message dated 9/24/2015 2:57:43 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, mark at markesystems.com writes: > I am actually sincerely sorry that you are having another migraine that > causes you to press the spacebar. > But, I do have to point out that it makes you sound like William Shatner. SNORT!!! (I had the fun of performing his version of Common People for a while with our power-pop band - it was a real blast!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsyNdjRX9mQ ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 8 months

1
0
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cctalk Digest, Vol 15, Issue 24

by mark＠markesystems.com

> I am actually sincerely sorry that you are having another migraine that > causes you to press the spacebar. > But, I do have to point out that it makes you sound like William Shatner. SNORT!!! (I had the fun of performing his version of Common People for a while with our power-pop band - it was a real blast!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsyNdjRX9mQ ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 8 months

1
0
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Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC programming

by bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca

On 9/17/2015 6:50 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote: > > This conclusion should have been obvious to anyone thinking about > general purpose computers implemented with microcode in ROM. Are there any computers that do let you put microcode into RAM now-days. You have a lot of byte code virtual machines out there. > -- Jecel > Ben.

10 years, 8 months

26
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Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

dps 8 was a phx ax big H project as I remember but new enough that I would have stored manuals rather than had them in active reference section. will keep eyes out! -Ed# In a message dated 9/24/2015 1:43:14 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, scaron at umich.edu writes: I think this anecdote is also referenced in the AFDC installation site story on multicians.org? Sounds familiar... Best, Sean On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:42 PM, steve shumaker <shumaker at att.net> wrote: > On 9/23/2015 2:44 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > >> Along with the 11/44 I also picked up a Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside >> workstation; I can't seem to dig up much information specific to this >> model >> (a badge on the rear labels it as "Model/Index No. B01732"). I can take >> some detailed pictures later this week after I've had time to clean it up >> (it's very, very dirty), but it looks very similar to the DPS-6 unit >> pictured on this site: >> http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/projet/gcos6/gcos6.htm >> >> Anyone have any docs on this thing? Or fun anecdotes to share? What have >> I gotten myself into with this thing? >> >> Thanks, >> Josh >> >> >> > browse here and elsewhere for WWMMCCS history and beginnings of > GCOS/DPS-6/Honeywell 6000 > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_Military_Command_and_Control_System > > > One legend that gets trotted out whenever you speak of WWMMCCS is the > cookie monster that was on terminals in the Pentagon installation of > WWMMCCS. As the legend goes, at random intervals, the console would go > blank, operators would loose control and a message would display something > to the effect "cookie monster hungry - feed me". Supposedly once you > typed in one of several cookie names, the routine would release the system > back to the operator. I personally know a retired AF IT manager who > worked WWMMCCS and swears its a true story... > > Suspect you will find very little material other than what Al has - it > wasn't a particularly common installed setup. > > Steve > >

10 years, 8 months

1
0
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Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

pretty funny! maybe I should be fortunate enough to have his salary also!? #ed In a message dated 9/24/2015 9:08:48 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cisin at xenosoft.com writes: On Thu, 24 Sep 2015, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > is it a dps 6 or 8? I am actually sincerely sorry that you are having another migraine that causes you to press the spacebar. But, I do have to point out that it makes you sound like William Shatner.

10 years, 8 months

1
0
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Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

is it a dps 6 or 8? In a message dated 9/24/2015 12:10:41 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, derschjo at gmail.com writes: On 9/23/15 2:56 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Ah, so these are the vintagetech.com machines! Please take lots of pics of > the DPS-8 inside and out; I've never really seen the innards of a Honeywell > machine before and I'm kind of curious what their "style" looks like. > > Best, > > Sean Will do. I took the boards out to inspect them tonight (they had rattled about a bit during shipment) and everything seems ok. I'll have time to take some pictures this weekend. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line someone disconnected nearly all the ribbon cables running to the boards and I've got no idea what goes where (only a couple are cohesively labeled.) This thing is going to be a project. - Josh

10 years, 8 months

2
1
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C out of its comfort zone - Re: Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Toby Thain > It did exist for some exotic, word addressed architectures {Innocent look} You mean, like the PDP-10? {Ducks!} Noel

10 years, 8 months

6
5
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Somewhat OT: Freighting Items

by cctalk＠fahimi.net

I know this is a topic that comes up quite often and I have archived a number of threads. However, I am still not finding what I need. The back story is that I need to have a desk shipped across the country to me. The desk measures 28" long, 27" wide, 35" tall and is ~125 pounds unpacked. While it is possible to disassemble the desk I rather not. I've gotten quotes form a number of outfits as follows: 1. UPS: $1200 to pack/crate the desk and ship it. 2. Craters and Freighters: $895 to wrap in PE Foam, Styrofoam, bubble wrap, and box shipped door to door (i.e. not real freight). 3. Freightquote: $475 if I palletize it/pack it myself (have to clarify if this is door to door or do I have to drop off and pickup). Anybody else have other suggestions/recommendations? From what I understand this desk is not that heavy (in the freighting scheme of things) and would easily fit on one pallet and maybe even a half pallet. But I've never shipped something via freight so maybe these are all accurate prices. Any help/guidance is very much appreciated. Thanks. -Ali

10 years, 8 months

14
42
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ISO: FP11-F (M7093) for PDP-11/44

by derschjo＠gmail.com

The 11/44 I acquired recently has a complete CPU set but no FP11-F board (M7093). I'd like to be able to run 2.11BSD (or other UNIX) on this machine, so having floating point hardware is pretty essential -- anyone have one going spare for sale/trade? Thanks as always, Josh

10 years, 8 months

2
1
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Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 deskside info?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

there was a nightmare! In a message dated 9/23/2015 6:20:18 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, healyzh at aracnet.com writes: Sam Ismail used to have a DPS-6, if not more than one

10 years, 8 months

1
0
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Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: tony duell > In some cases it should be possible to write a machine code program > that executes on 2 processors with wildly different instruciton sets. I have this bit set that I was told (or something, the memory is _very_ vague) that early versions of the KL-10 had this hack; the root block on the disk was the boot block both the PDP-10 and the PDP-11 front end machine, and the first instruction or two was very cleverly construced and sent the two machines different ways. Alas, I looked in the front-end PDP-11 code (in the KLDCP; directory) and saw no signs of this, so maybe it was an urban legend? Noel

10 years, 8 months

4
4
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Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

by elson＠pico-systems.com

On 09/19/2015 10:58 PM, John Foust wrote: > The other recent development that makes me want to quit? > Someone's demonstrated you can hide in the firmware of > hard drives. > https://blog.kaspersky.com/equation-hdd-malware/7623/ - John Well, one would assume this is also OS specific. I would guess it would be incredibly hard to make a "disk" virus that would work on greatly differing OS's like Linux AND Windows. No telling what would happen if one of these disk viruses got onto a hard drive on a Windows system and then the drive was reformatted and loaded with Linux. Most likely you'd have odd crashes or something. Jon

10 years, 8 months

15
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cctalk Digest, Vol 15, Issue 23

by mark＠markesystems.com

> So, I am looking to convert my old Access database I have used for many > years to a MySQL database, with the expectation that I will eventually > publish it on a web page for public lookup. I don't know what you're looking at for the front end of this project, but have you considered SQLite for the database engine back end? If not, you might take a look at www.sqlite.org - it's an extremely nice bit of software, if not for this project, then perhaps others. ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 8 months

2
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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

see if mother in law can bag it! they are rather pricey now! heh heh! In a message dated 9/23/2015 1:54:51 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cube1 at charter.net writes: On 9/23/2015 2:34 PM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > I really believe a person would make an entire interesting > collection of just logic trainers! > > we have a couple of the MINIVAC trainers too one I keep under > glass and the other I take out for show and tell. > My mother in law had one of those she used in her high school for extra projects for kids in her math classes. Played with it when I was up one Labor Day weekend before my wife and I were married. If that counts then so should the Digicomp plastic slidy-toy-thing I had as a kid. ;) JRJ

10 years, 8 months

1
0
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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Ok have digicomp... then there were the arrray of analog computers with potentiometers and a meter.... In a message dated 9/23/2015 1:54:51 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cube1 at charter.net writes: On 9/23/2015 2:34 PM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > I really believe a person would make an entire interesting > collection of just logic trainers! > > we have a couple of the MINIVAC trainers too one I keep under > glass and the other I take out for show and tell. > My mother in law had one of those she used in her high school for extra projects for kids in her math classes. Played with it when I was up one Labor Day weekend before my wife and I were married. If that counts then so should the Digicomp plastic slidy-toy-thing I had as a kid. ;) JRJ

10 years, 8 months

1
0
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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

I really believe a person would make an entire interesting collection of just logic trainers! we have a couple of the MINIVAC trainers too one I keep under glass and the other I take out for show and tell. We have a fabritek and a few other later ones too. In a message dated 9/23/2015 9:58:30 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cube1 at charter.net writes: On 9/23/2015 11:28 AM, couryhouse wrote: > Wow! That is neat! > Our Dec logic trainer has sort of 8i looking toggles and lots of patch > cords... I had not seen one like yours. ... what is the date? > Ed# > > > There is an earlier one of similar design, but blue colored, in the 1966-67, 1967 and 1968 logic handbooks - so mine is later than that. One with PDP-8/PDP-12 style switches shows up in the back of the 1969 logic handbook. There is one that looks somewhat like mine on the inside front cover of the 1970 logic handbook, and the panels that would be possible to include in one start at page 353. So that dates it to 1970 or after.

10 years, 8 months

2
1
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LA120 ROM & new member intro

by thebri＠gmail.com

Hi. The original ROM request showed up just before I started receiving messages this morning, and I only got the tail end of the chatter. Instead of tacking a reply on to that, I thought I'd just start a new thread and introduce myself at the same time. Here's what I think is 23-038e4-00 from an LA120 (with a bad print head, and dead pin drivers as well). I couldn't find anything to compare it against, and the adapter is new. So it might be gibberish. I did see, at least, [A-Z] in the dump, so maybe it's good. As for the introduction, I started life on the Apple II in fourth grade or thereabouts, finally got a Commodore 128, then an Amiga, then jumped over to UNIX (BSD mostly) and stuck there for years doing software. After funding stopped being an issue, I decided to get back to more interesting and/or simple hardware, and electronics in general. I seem to have collected a rather complete HP86/87, under the illusion of using it for an GPIB controller. I'm now wrestling with an apparently dead PSU on a MicroPDP (actually, I just now gave up on it), and am slowly fixing up a PDP-8/a. It has two CPU boards, one of which ignores the HALT instruction. From the schematics, I think it's one faulty 74ls chip, but I haven't tried fixing it -- the machine has been down for cleaning/painting for many months. I just got it put back together this weekend. I also swapped out the fans for modern (quiet) 12v fans (driven off an isolated power supply powered by the original 120 vac fan supply)...and now hear the transformer buzzing away. Win some, lose some. Sigh. Congrats on making it to the end! Cheers! b

10 years, 8 months

2
2
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cctalk Digest, Vol 15, Issue 23

by mark＠markesystems.com

> There were plenty of assemblers around, some even native. Heck, I wrote > both an 8008 and an 8080 cross-assembler (in FORTRAN, naturally). It's > not rocket science. One friend of mine wrote his assembler as macros > for a mainframe assembler. That, at once, gave him all of the advanced > facilities of the host assembler. Wish I'd thought of that... So, I wrote my primitive little 8080 assembler, in Fortran-77. I started using it the next day, and my manager asked where I got it. After I told him, he said that I should have asked him first, because he could have put together one using editor macros pretty easily - in less than a week, he estimated. The fact that I knew nothing about macros notwithstanding, I noticed I thereafter got a lot more autonomy when I told him I wrote mine in a single (longish) day... ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 8 months

2
1
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Structured Fortran

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

At NCAR there was a structured Fortran preprocessor named IFTRAN that was in use for a long time. The earlier versions of the NCAR Local Network (NLNET), later renamed MASnet (Mainframe and Server network), as well as a variety of graphics packages were written in it. I still have the IFTRAN to C translator I wrote to convert everything to C code so we didn?t have to spend money on Fortran compilers on the Unix boxes. MASnet was a Hyperchannel cross bar network used for batch job submissions and data transfers to/from the Mass Storage Server (MSS), the supercomputers and the front end servers. Eventually it was migrated to run on top of TCP/IP and Ethernet when the Hyperchannel hardware got expensive to maintain and comparatively slow.

10 years, 8 months

1
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Re: would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by couryhouse＠aol.com

Wow! That is neat!Our Dec logic trainer has sort of 8i looking toggles and lots of patch cords... I had not seen one like yours. ... what is the date?Ed# Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone -------- Original message -------- From: Jay Jaeger <cube1 at charter.net> Date: 09/23/2015 6:21 AM (GMT-07:00) To: COURYHOUSE at aol.com, cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli... On 9/23/2015 3:58 AM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > Yes? host?? was? having hickups? it? seems. >? > Take a look? at the neat logic? trainer? by? IBM at link? below, >? > Wish I had? more? info on this? IBM? tube?? type? digital logic? trainer > kit.? comes in a?? wonderful? fitted? case? with all kinds of??? plugable > units?? see url >? > http://www.smecc.org/wpe_files/wpe45.jpg >? >? > The logic? trainer is on the left? at the? right is? SAGE? plugable? unit >? That is seriously cool. I have one of the older style DEC ones, complete with lots of cards and plug wires: http://webpages.charter.net/thecomputercollection/misc/logiclab.jpg JRJ

10 years, 8 months

3
2
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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Yes host was having hickups it seems. Take a look at the neat logic trainer by IBM at link below, Wish I had more info on this IBM tube type digital logic trainer kit. comes in a wonderful fitted case with all kinds of plugable units see url http://www.smecc.org/wpe_files/wpe45.jpg The logic trainer is on the left at the right is SAGE plugable unit This was a really early photo as I think I had just finished building the display case and that was all that was in it! that entire 8 foot case is pretty much SAGE display. SAGE is near and dear to some of us as we had a DC across from Luke AFB about 15 minutes away from our building. We even have some remains of come gear from the first prototype Q7 system that I need to hunt down more info on. Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 9/22/2015 7:01:09 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cube1 at charter.net writes: Hmmm. I am getting a DNS miss on www.smecc.org - was not getting that earlier today. JRJ On 9/22/2015 8:37 PM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > One thing first look at this and need more info on it and docs. > > wish I had more info on this IBM tube type digital logic trainer > kit. comes in a wonderful fitted case with all kinds of plugable > units > see url http://www.smecc.org/wpe_files/wpe45.jpg > > > current project 3000/37 and micro 3000 > Looking for more 3000 stuff both small and large ( cx, ser I,I ser > III etc.) > Pulled them all over to the media center where I could spread out and > work on them. > > ok here is some of our stuff. > we are not exclusively a computer museum but we do have some <grin!> > > > Other areas are > scientific instruments, > radar and radar countermeasures adn other electronic warefare > radio and TV broadcasting, > Rural Electrification, > Tools of the journalist, > office automation 1800's forward. > Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing > and on and on > > Some Minis > > H 11 ( LSI-11 by DEC but in Heath packaging ) > DEC PDP8 classsic sn/18 > HP-2116b > HP-2000 access system (has 2 2100 in it) > HP3000/37 ( when it is in the building) > eclipse s20 > > need to clean and wedge in > Dec PDP 11/20 > DEC PDP-8 S > NEXT cube, printer, monitor and all next-y related chachakies > > who know what are in the other buildings > > Micros... > > Intel Intellect 8 > Altairs > Imsais > many Comidore things > many R.S. > Heath h-8 > Heath H-89 > several osbornes > apples > sun-sparc > lots of single board computers > cobalt cube > next cube with all accs > a bunch of other ss > > many many hp desktops and pcs > love the prtototype iHP Integral we have too > > > > > trainers and digital labs > > IBM really early with tube type plugable units > > DEC lab > Fabritec lab > > wish I had more info on this IBM comes in a wonderful fitted case > with all kinds of plugable units > see url http://www.smecc.org/wpe_files/wpe45.jpg > > > > > > > In a message dated 9/22/2015 3:25:29 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, > jwest at classiccmp.org writes: > > Awesome. What minicomputer systems do you have on public display besides > the > DG? I'm glad to see more DG representation of course :) > > ---- > This month's 'make computer work ' project is HP-3000 related. > ---- > I'm a bit of an HP fan ;) What's cooking 3K-related? > >

10 years, 8 months

2
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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

You are indeed lucky they ceased. Mine did not start until my 20s It is definitely one thing that made sure I had my own business. Many people in a supervisory position have no understanding of what it is like. Ed# In a message dated 9/22/2015 10:10:22 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cube1 at charter.net writes: On 9/22/2015 11:00 PM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > probably an artifact generated by my migraine this evening . > Ugh. Had some of those while I was in High School, complete with squiggly lines, often nausea and hours of intense pain. You have my sympathy. Then one day I started to get one while I was driving from home to the local music store. I pulled over, took a deep breath and (I kid you not) told myself no, you are not going to get a migraine, ain't gonna happen. It went away almost immediately, and I haven't had one since. Go figure. Almost certainly pure coincidence. [I wish that would work for everyone. Sigh.] JRJ

10 years, 8 months

1
0
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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Ed reply - Jay - I did all that yeas ago... It did not smoke but it also did not do much else. LOOPBACK to... I need to find manuals and a system tapes probably. Sure looks pretty though ( and better with a blue et head terminal on top!) I wish I had learned more about DG stuff. I had some folks that had helped me when I was starting out in the business and when DG stuff showed up or a local needed something usually I turned them over to one of my friends. eventually I was even handing of DEC deals to friendly people and just settled in on the HP stuff. It worked well that way but I sure did not learn much abut DG stuff! Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 9/22/2015 3:25:29 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: ed sez -Pretty futile to restore until I have manuals and a load tape if needed in front of me. ---- jay sez- Not futile at all. Taking it apart, cleaning it up, replacing anything obviously bad, checking out the power supply.... all things you can likely do without a manual. You could go a little further than that just by asking a few questions here; folks are glad to help! Think of all the great stuff you'd learn along the way!! You'd find manuals and tapes at some point I'm sure!

10 years, 8 months

1
0
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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Jay looking at - your flicker page I would say you have a mountain of it! <grin!> I see you have one of those small reel tape drives also like we do in our s20... what is the interface on them? what BPI ? who actually made them? https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638 at N02 In a message dated 9/22/2015 3:25:29 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: ---- Jay sez - Not sure what you're driving at there, but when I'm done... all I will have is one lonely rack :) Nothing wrong with that! Not to mention, there's the "classiccmp law of attraction". Basically if you get just part of a machine, the rest will suddenly start appearing :)

10 years, 8 months

2
1
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Fwd: [midatlanticretro] Announcement

by mspproductions＠gmail.com

This was posted on another list, I thought that others on this list would be interested. Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: > From: "Dave McGuire Mcguire at neurotica.com [midatlanticretro]" <midatlanticretro at yahoogroups.com> > Date: September 22, 2015 at 10:44:52 PM EDT > To: "midatlanticretro at yahoogroups.com" <midatlanticretro at yahoogroups.com> > Subject: [midatlanticretro] Announcement > Reply-To: midatlanticretro at yahoogroups.com > > > Some of you are aware that I've been pursuing a long-term project of > constructing a museum in the Pittsburgh area. > > I am proud to announce that we have hit a major milestone: We have > set a date for the first public opening. The Large Scale Systems > Museum will open its doors to the public on Saturday, October 17th, > just under one month from now. > > This is to be a one-day provisional opening coinciding with an event > here in town. We may decide to open the museum regularly on a sparse > schedule afterward, or it may wait awhile, depending on how things go > on the 17th. The renovation work is ongoing, so it won't be perfect, > but we think it'll be good. A great deal of progress has been made > here in the past several months. > > Many of the Really Big Computers here will be running and > demonstrated on a rotation throughout the day. > > The event in town is a large "block party" of sorts that will > encompass much of the downtown area. A few highlights: > > - A fancy department store that was located on this block decades > ago will re-open in their old store location to show off vintage > wedding gowns, and some people who purchased their gowns there in the > past will bring them back to show them off. > > - A local winery will set up a wine tasting. > > - A soldering workshop. > > - A makerspace pop-up. > > - A beer garden! > > - The standard fare of food vendors, live bands, etc. > > There are two other "Big Deal" tie-ins that I'd like to announce: > > Big Deal #1: Many of you will remember my fiancee Autumn, who sold > handmade vintage-computer-themed soaps at the most recent VCF-East. > Her company, Apothecary Soap Company, will be opening its first store, > here in town around the corner from our main building. > > Big Deal #2: While the details aren't yet finalized, C/PMuseum in > downtown Pittsburgh, curated by Corey Little and Chris Little, will be > relocating many of its exhibits, including some vintage game consoles, > to a temporary exhibit space just a few buildings down from mine. > Since C/PMuseum's primary focus is on microcomputers and the Large > Scale Systems Museum's primary focus is on minicomputers and > mainframes, so together we'll have great coverage of a range of genres. > > My building is at 924 4th Avenue, New Kensington, PA 15068, right in > the middle of the block party area. New Kensington is about ten > minutes' drive from the Allegheny Valley exit of the Pennsylvania > Turnpike, Exit 48. It's a very easy area to reach, and there are a > number of decent hotels nearby. > > I wish to extend an invitation to all of you to attend this event. > It's on Saturday, October 17th, from noon to 8PM. > > Please feel free to forward this message to anyone whom you think > might be interested. > > Thanks, > -Dave > > - -- > Dave McGuire, AK4HZ > New Kensington, PA > > __._,_.___ > Posted by: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> > Reply via web post ? Reply to sender ? Reply to group ? Start a New Topic ? Messages in this topic (1) > VISIT YOUR GROUP New Members 1 > ? Privacy ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use > . > > > __,_._,___

10 years, 8 months

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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

One thing first look at this and need more info on it and docs. wish I had more info on this IBM tube type digital logic trainer kit. comes in a wonderful fitted case with all kinds of plugable units see url http://www.smecc.org/wpe_files/wpe45.jpg current project 3000/37 and micro 3000 Looking for more 3000 stuff both small and large ( cx, ser I,I ser III etc.) Pulled them all over to the media center where I could spread out and work on them. ok here is some of our stuff. we are not exclusively a computer museum but we do have some <grin!> Other areas are scientific instruments, radar and radar countermeasures adn other electronic warefare radio and TV broadcasting, Rural Electrification, Tools of the journalist, office automation 1800's forward. Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and on and on Some Minis H 11 ( LSI-11 by DEC but in Heath packaging ) DEC PDP8 classsic sn/18 HP-2116b HP-2000 access system (has 2 2100 in it) HP3000/37 ( when it is in the building) eclipse s20 need to clean and wedge in Dec PDP 11/20 DEC PDP-8 S NEXT cube, printer, monitor and all next-y related chachakies who know what are in the other buildings Micros... Intel Intellect 8 Altairs Imsais many Comidore things many R.S. Heath h-8 Heath H-89 several osbornes apples sun-sparc lots of single board computers cobalt cube next cube with all accs a bunch of other ss many many hp desktops and pcs love the prtototype iHP Integral we have too trainers and digital labs IBM really early with tube type plugable units DEC lab Fabritec lab wish I had more info on this IBM comes in a wonderful fitted case with all kinds of plugable units see url http://www.smecc.org/wpe_files/wpe45.jpg In a message dated 9/22/2015 3:25:29 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: Awesome. What minicomputer systems do you have on public display besides the DG? I'm glad to see more DG representation of course :) ---- This month's 'make computer work ' project is HP-3000 related. ---- I'm a bit of an HP fan ;) What's cooking 3K-related?

10 years, 8 months

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Core memory and OS/8

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

<EmilyLitella> Never Mind! </EmilyLitella> I put the 32K SRAM board back in with the top four fields disabled. Sure enough, OS/8 booted and MEM showed 16K, which confirms my recollection that it will work with less than 32K. Then my lights came on - I had made an elementary error... I had selected the wrong MM8-AB 16K core board, the one that was jumpered for field 4-7. So there wasn't any core in fields 0-3 which will "break" OS/8. When I fired up the system with only the board jumpered for the LOW 16K core, everything works as usual. Sorry for the bandwidth... -Charles

10 years, 8 months

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Are we different?

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

I was reading an article in Maximum PC, Nov. 2015, p.82 that got my attention. It said: ?When the lower orders knew their place?? I wonder if he means users of vintage computers? Just asking! Happy computing. Murray :)

10 years, 8 months

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Core memory and OS/8

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

One of the reasons I bought Vince's 32K SRAM board for my 8/A is because I was having flakiness with my "real" core boards (two 16K and one 8K). Now that OS/8 is running again, and my RL8A and two RL02's are as debugged as they're going to get, I decided to experiment with the old core. Put them back in the chassis and... the two 16K boards are now working perfectly. I ran it for two long passes with DHKMAD (checkerboard diagnostic) with no errors! What's strange, though, is that OS/8 won't boot unless both 16K boards are in the backplane. Then it does boot and a MEM shows "32K MEMORY!" as expected. Won't boot with 16K or 24K of boards, either. I thought that only 12K was mandatory (at least that's what the Device Extensions manual says for an RL01). Or is that something that's set up during BUILD?... I don't see anything in the OS/8 manual and I know I had OS/8 running with 16K and 24K previously. -Charles

10 years, 8 months

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Query for dec teleprinter roms

by jgevaryahu＠gmail.com

Does anyone have an LA36, LA120 or LAS12, LA34, LA100, or LA210 somewhere which they could dump the ROMs from? Notes: The LA36 uses several proms for its discrete cpu, and 2 character set roms which I believe have an 'odd' pinout. The LA120, one of the roms on the '2 rom version' is an 8k 2364 24 pin chip which is a bit annoying to dump, since you either need a 2364->2764 24->28 pin adapter, or (better) a programmer which can dump MC68764 or MC68766 24-pin 8k eproms (which have the same pinout as 2364). The other rom on the 2 rom version is a 2k 2316 24 pin chip. The oldest LA120 version uses 5 roms, all 2k 2316s. The code on the 5-rom version and the 2-rom version may very well be the same (the first 4 2k chips consolidated to one 8k chip), I'm not sure. Would be nice to get dumps of both versions. The LAS12 uses different code from the LA120 and to the best of my knowledge all LAS12s use 2 roms, one 8k and one 2k. LA34, theres at LEAST five firmware versions, almost certainly six, and possibly as many as seven. There is also a special firmware for a 'rom expansion' daughterboard. The 1978 LA34 "54-13374" motherboard has a bizarre Intel i8355 mask rom+io chip in it, plus a separate rom as well. (there are at least two versions of said i8355+rom firmware). Dumping the i8355 is not for the faint of heart, it would likely be easier to insert a 'dumping program' eprom into the single rom's socket, and use the LA34's cpu to spit its own rom contents out via serial. The 1980 LA34 "54-13747" motherboard lacks the i8355 and uses 2 or 3 mask roms or eproms on it instead (and 74xx logic for the i/o). There are at least three rom revisions for this, possibly four or five. LA100 (AKA LW100)... I have no idea. There's definitely at least one rom revision. Also to the best of my knowledge neither the maintenance print set nor the technical manual for the LA100 are scanned (they certainly don't appear at http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/terminal/la100/ ), which makes it difficult to know. -- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu at gmail.com jgevaryahu at hotmail.com

10 years, 8 months

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Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus

by rickb＠bensene.com

Chuck wrote: > > For those wondering about the notion of an "optimizing" assembler, one > has to realize that 650 instructions were executed from a drum and were of > the "1+1" addressing type. Calculating the optimal address of the next > instruction was very tedious and a perfect task for automatic optimization. > Many moons ago I did some programming on a process control computer made by 3M. The machine was a 24-bit word, bit-serial, transistorized machine with drum as main memory. Each instruction contained both the operand address and the next instruction address (in block/track/sector numbers). Depending on the timing of the instruction, the optimal address for the operand and next instruction were calculated based on offsets given in the instruction set summary. There were no index registers on this machine, only a single accumulator register (implemented as a shift-register). The only way you could do table operations or jumps based on evaluation of an expression was self-modifying code. However, this was tricky, if you wanted the code to run as efficiently as possible (minimizing waiting for rotation of the drum), you had to do optimization calculations as part of the self-modifying code. The other tricky part was the you had to be aware of track and sector numbers and properly deal with overflowing, e.g., max sector number was , IIRC, 30(octal) , so if you added 1 to the address, you'd have to clear the sector to zero, and add one to the track address, also being aware that the track number could overflow. I learned a lot from that old machine. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com

10 years, 8 months

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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small eclipse

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small eclipse this thing is a beauty and has a tiny side by side reel to reel deck just would be nice to have a terminal to display with it in the museum. drop us a line offlinst... ed sharpe archivist for smecc

10 years, 8 months

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Some amount of DG goodness

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

Oh, that blue 1970's psychedelic color! The fast line printer! The vacuum column drive (drool)! And it is alive! Congratulations! Marc

10 years, 8 months

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'New' PDP-11 prints

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So, I've been going through all my PDP-11 prints, looking for ones that aren't already online (so I can scan/upload them). I have a couple (see later message), but this is about something else. In doing the above, I ran across an LSI-11 print set (MP-00706) which is about 340 pages long, and contains prints for all manner of boards, some of which do not show up (for reasons I don't understand) when looked for in a common search engine (Google, to be precise). I will eventually be adding them to my list of 'online by unfindable print sets': http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/FMPSOnline.html (which I have recently updated with more finds falling out of the search of my collection of prints), but: does anyone know of any other similar large compendiums of prints online? In particular, I'm hoping there's a later equivalent (this one's from October 1978) which would show a lot of the later QBUS boards which we don't have prints for. As I previously mentioned, I've gone through a number of PDP-11 print sets which are online (11/05, 11/05S, 11/23, 11/34, etc) in compiling the initial list, but it seems like there are more out there. Please let me know of any others you are aware of, so I can trawl them too! Noel

10 years, 8 months

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Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC programming

by mark＠markesystems.com

> I wrote X.25 software in Fortran:-(. We had some machine specific routines One of my first professional jobs after college was with a company that created after-market hardware and software for Apollo workstations. Despite having a good Pascal, I was tasked with (and completed) a port of a scientific word processor package (WordMarc), all in Fortran (77, at least). Since I ended up being pretty familiar with both the language and environment, I used it again to throw together a simple 8080 assembler in about a day, too. ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 8 months

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Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC

by mark＠markesystems.com

> Early 3rd generation machines had special instructions to finagle their > way around self-modifying code: And some didn't: The HP 2100 and the PDP-8 (and I think the Honeywell x16s), instead of a stack, would store the return address of subroutine calls in the first word of the subroutine; obviously, this made recursive subroutines impossible without handling a stack manually. > Few CDCers of the time even knew that the STAR-100 existed. I remember Reading up on the early history of CDC, I stumbled across the "Little Character" - Seymour Cray's six-bit proof of concept for his first computer designs at CDC. Apparently, one was actually built, because it's now at the CHM. However, I haven't been able to find any significant information about this on the Web (my Google-fu must be failing me). Does anyone know where I could find some documentation about this machine? Performance specs (memory size, speed, etc.) would be nice, but I'd really like a detailed architecture and instruction set description - you know, in case someone wanted to make an emulator or something... ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 8 months

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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

yes ET! the one in the with the head in the yoke although anything blue and pretty would be better than nothing! Our Eclipse is not as grand as some photos ,,, and the tape drive is a small side by side reel unit that fits in the single rack here is a photo of ours.... http://www.smecc.org/data_general.htm had it for years need manuals etc and maybe some sales lit. or scans of advertising material to display with it... but yea... it cries out to have a terminal with it! In a message dated 9/22/2015 9:08:14 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: Jay Jaeger wrote... ---- ??? What do you mean by "blue dg et head looking terminal" ??? ---- I'd bet that he's referring to the Data General Dasher D200 terminal. I have one: https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638 at N02/21058074082 But perhaps a better picture: http://maben.homeip.net/static/s100/data%20general/photos/DG%20dasher%20d200 %20front.jpg The D200 isn't always on ebay, but usually they show up mildly frequently there and seem to go around $200 to $250. There was another common terminal on eclipse systems. I'm not sure if it was in the Dasher series, but I believe it was called a "5821". I have one of these as well. http://www.museumwaalsdorp.nl/computer/images/GRP.jpg Lastly, a common combination system console (terminal)/printer that is VERY cool looking was the Dasher TP1 and TP2. Mine is a TP1. http://www.foxdata.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IMG_0210.jpg J

10 years, 8 months

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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

that may have been the one i had.... In a message dated 9/22/2015 11:59:29 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: On mine, there is no "blank panel space" to the right of the screen. The screen takes up the entire horizontal width. Diagonally, the terminal "head" measures 21 inches so it's slightly unusually large for a terminal. On the back, under model number it says "5821NT".

10 years, 8 months

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PDP-11 Overlays

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

Recently, there have been a number of references to using overlays on the PDP-11. There have also been strong suggestions that overlays were structured differently under the 3 operating systems: RSTS/E, RSX-11 and RT-11. Obviously, I understand how RT-11 overlays were set up, but for those readers who don't: ROOT - contains overlay code subroutines and data tables - data used by more than one overlay FIRST Overlay Region - size of the largest overlay in the region - one or more overlays and the data used by just that overlay SECOND Overlay Region - size of the largest overlay in the region - one or more overlays and the data used by just that overlay THIRD Overlay Region - size of the largest overlay in the region - one or more overlays and the data used by just that overlay FREE MEMORY Any overlay could be called from any location. About the only requirement was that the calling instruction code (specifically the code which followed the calling instruction) had to be in memory when the code returned from the overlay. In practice, the usual protocol was that an overlay in a higher region was only called >from a lower region or the root. I understand that RSTS/E and RSX-11 were a bit more complex. Can anyone briefly summarize and also provide a link to the details in the appropriate manual if it is available on the internet? Jerome Fine

10 years, 8 months

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Multi-platform distribution format (Was: Backups [was

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

>Rod Smallwood wrote: > >On 21/09/2015 10:30, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> >On 2015-09-21 02:11, Jerome H. Fine wrote: >> >>> You bring up a VERY notable lack of support by DEC of that >>> situation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >>> >>> For both the DEC RX01 and the DEC RX02 8" floppy drives, >>> while it might have been possible that DEC engineers were unable >>> to initially figure out how to allow users to perform an LLF (Low >>> Level Format) on the 8" floppy drives, it seems certain that after >>> 3rd party manufactures figured out, DEC could also have supported >>> that function as well. >>> >>> Instead, DEC pretended that all 8" floppy media HAD to be >>> purchased PRE-FORMATTED from DEC. Well, if you >>> ever discussed that option with a DEC person, it certainly >>> did not seem like the individual was pretending. >>> >>> After I managed to locate a DSD (Data Systems Design) >>> drive which supported the DEC RX02 floppy drive function, >>> it was game over for that particular DEC monopoly. The >>> DSD drive was able to perform an LLF for either single >>> density or double density in addition to being both single >>> sided and double sided. >> >> Not that tricky. All you needed was a way to format into RX01 format, >> which is plain simple IBM single side, single density format. >> RX02 floppies have the same low level formatting. To use them in RX02 >> mode just requires flipping a bit in the sector header, and the RX02 >> drive is able to do that. > I am not sure that I understand your suggestion. While I agree that the RX02 was able to switch a single-density floppy to a double-density floppy (and visa versa), the difficulty, as you pointed out, was performing the initial LLF (Low Level Formatting) in the first place on Un-Formatted 8" floppies. That may have been easy with IBM hardware, but DEC made that impossible if all the user had was a DEC system. For readers unfamiliar with DEC vocabulary, the FORMAT command did NOT create a file structure! That command in RT-11 was INITIALIZE and something similar was probably used for RSTS/E and RSX-11. Note that under RT-11, the FORMAT command for the RX02 did NOT perform an LLF, but did set the density bit in each sector if an LLF had already been performed and was sufficiently intact to support clearing out all the data in the sector setting and the density bit to the value requested by the user. In practice, I found that when an RX02 floppy started having problems, the LLF was VERY rarely a problem. For reasons which were not understood, when the floppy media started to have read and or write errors, it was usually possible to have the RX02 floppy drive perform the software command which DEC called FORMAT and re-initialize all the sectors so that the media could be used again without any read and or write errors. That obviously would have required the LLF to be sufficiently present for the software and hardware to repair the problems and reset all the sectors as either single-density or double-density depending on what the user requested. I am not sure what conclusions can be drawn from this example. >>> Note that the RX50 was the same. DEC finally changed >>> their marketing policy with the RX33 drive which used the >>> same 3.5" HD floppy media as the PC. It was actually >>> possible to FORMAT those floppies under RT-11. >> >> No, DEC actually did support users formatting RX50 floppies on their >> own, but only on the Rainbow. >> >> Johnny > If it was possible to perform a LLF using the same RX50 drive on the Rainbow, what was the reason why an LLF could not also be performed on a PDP-11? There seems to be a number of possibilities: (a) There was some hardware that the Rainbow had which was missing on the PDP-11 systems (b) The firmware in the controller on the Rainbow supported an LLF, but the firmware in the controller on the RQDX1, RQDX2 or RQDX3 on the PDP-11 did not support an LLF (c) The Rainbow used a program which DEC supplied that could perform an LLF, but DEC did not supply such a program for the PDP-11 systems (d) Another possibility of which I am not aware. Is there an answer as to which possibility supported the Rainbow being able to perform an LLF using an RX50 drive, but that the PDP-11 systems with that same RX50 could not perform an LLF? >> Take me back to my desk in DECPark thirty years ago and I could have >> pulled out the internal documents on this. > > I cant do that so we will have to make do with my dodgy memory. > When floppy disks first appeared end users just wanted to take the > disk out of the box and use it. > They could not see why they should waste time preparing every new one. > They did not need matching to a particular drive as DEC's > manufacturing tolerances made sure any disk would work on any drive. > > In fact it was more difficult and expensive to provide pre-formatted > disks. > It was more about customer service and making sure the equipment kept > running. > > I heard the following story > > One customer went out and got a huge pile of unformatted (and > untested) floppys and a third party format program. > He expected DEC to make it work. > > The account manager asked to see his DEC maintainance contract and had > to be restrained from tearing it up. > Through the window of the office was building site and the inevitable > 50 gallon oil drum burning rubbish. > He was offered a choice; he could put the disks or the contract in the > burning drum. > > Rod Smallwood > > > > > DEC supplied pre formatted disks I don't know how to respond since different individuals will interpret your story in the opposite manner, So I will add my own experience when I used the RX02 drive from DEC along with the DSD RX03 floppy drive. Around 1990 after I had acquired the DSD RX03 floppy drive in a DSD 880/30 system, I also managed to acquire many brands of 8" floppy media. At that point, I had not yet managed to acquire any tape hardware such as the TK25 which supported a 32 MB disk image, so the floppies were my primary backup. I probably had about a dozen different brands of 8" floppies that required an LLF before they could be used. And since a double-density, double-sided 8" floppy media held about 1 MB (1976 blocks) as opposed to about 1/2 MB (988 blocks) for double-density, single-sided media, I set set about the task of enhancing the DEC DY.MAC RX02 device driver after I found the code in V04.00 of RT-11 which included support for double-sided media. What may be called "interesting" was that DEC had removed all of that optional code in DY.MAC by the time V05.00 of RT-11 was released. That might have had something to do with the fact that DEC never sold (that I heard of) an RX03 drive. In any case, adding and correcting the extra code was quite easy. The challenge was to also add support for a user buffer being above the 1/4 MB boundary in a PDP-11 with all 4 MB of memory when a Mapped RT-11 Monitor was used since the controller supported only 18-bit addresses. Another problem was that the index hole for single-sided floppies was offset about 1/2" from the index hole for double-sided floppies. That challenge was solved by using a DPDT switch to flip the sensors that were used on the DSD 880/30 and that supported using, as double-sided, floppies with the single- sided index hole. While a number of 8" floppies had been purchased that had the double-sided index hole, that was less than 10% of the total and after punching the extra pair of holes in single-sided floppies just a few times, it was very quickly apparent that the DPDT switch was a much better one-time solution. What was initially a surprise was that EITHER the single-sided OR double-sided index hole could be used with the same floppy to access the sectors even though the holes were in different positions. The timing did not seem to matter. Only the device driver software cared if the bit was set one way or the other, so flipping the sensors which were activated was an excellent one-time solution when the user (me!!) wanted to use a floppy with a single-sided index hole as a double-sided floppy. In any case, the code was enhanced, my version of DYX.SYS supported the RX03 double-density, double-sided floppy drive under a 22-bit RT-11 monitor. So I set about the job of the LLFs for double-sided 8" floppy media. As mentioned above, in addition to a couple of dozen 8" DEC floppies, I had about a dozen other brands. To make a long story short at this point, the results were "interesting". Every non-DEC branded 8" floppy could hold an LLF for double-sided, double-density. On the other hand, I seem to remember that only about 2/3 of the DEC 8" floppies managed to complete the LLF. The other 1/3 of the DEC 8" floppies could hold an LLF on the normal first side, but not on the second side. Obviously this story was somewhat different since it was not necessary to ask DEC maintenance to make the LLF capability with the DSD 880/30 to work - it already worked. In addition, there was no DEC maintenance contract in the first place and there was no 50 gallon oil drum. There was also no refusal by DEC to enhance the DY.MAC device driver to support the RX03 floppy drive since DEC was not asked. Over the decades since, I have always wondered how it was even possible for ONLY the DEC 8" floppies to be unable to take an LLF double-sided when every other brand managed to do so. There was probably one floppy that was so severely damaged that it would not take an LLF on either side, but that was a specific exception. Any 8" floppy which could take a double-sided, double-density LLF held the data successfully when used in practice. In any case, I also ask the questions: (a) Was it more difficult and expensive to provide pre-formatted disks? (b) FOR WHOM was it more difficult and expensive to provide pre-formatted disks (DEC or the user)? (c) Was it more about customer service and making sure the equipment kept running? (d) Was it more about DEC charging about TEN times the price for pre-formatted disks over the price for un-formatted disks and having a technician take the time to do the LLF (about 2 minutes for each double-sided, double-density floppy or about 30 floppies an hour)? At the time, I seem to remember that a box of 10 pre-formatted 8" floppies from DEC was about $ 50 while a box of 10 un-formatted 8" floppies was about $ 5 a box. If a technician could format 3 boxes of 8" floppies in an hour, that would seem to save that user about $ 135 which would probably be less expensive for the user. (e) Was it equally reliable and less expensive to use non-DEC unformatted 8" floppies if the user had the necessary hardware and or software to pre-format the floppies? Also, I want to be sure to add that in my experience, RT-11 is probably the best written and documented operating system that I have encountered. While there are still a few bugs that can actually crash the operating system and many enhancements were and are still needed, RT-11 is mostly stable and easy to use. RT-11 obviously lacks any security when running under an UnMapped Monitor since the user has access to all of the memory. Even with a Mapped Monitor, a user program can gain access to the Monitor. But RT-11 was not designed to be secure in the first place. So I still think that DEC did an exceptional job - especially since almost all programs written for the very first version of RT-11 can still run under the latest version. Jerome Fine

10 years, 8 months

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Reading a masked ROM the hard way (was Re: Wanted: ROM images from HP 9895, 82901/82902, and other HP-IB disk drives)

by spacewar＠gmail.com

Someone was kind enough to mail me the masked ROM out of his HP 9895 floppy drive. I've read it and mailed it back. It's an MK36000 series 24-pin 8KB masked ROM, with the same pinout as the Motorola MC68764 EPROM, so reading it with an EPROM programmer set for the Motorola part should work fine. In read mode, no programming voltage is applied, so there should be no risk of damage to the part. Unfortunately my Data I/O Unisite does too good a job trying to protect devices against reverse or misaligned insertion or incorrect device configuration; if it thinks the current drawn by the device is too low or too high, it aborts with a device insertion error. The MK36000 draws significantly less current than the MCM68764. I tried putting an appropriately valued resistor in parallel, but still got the error. I ended up kludging the masked ROM to the expansion bus interface of a TI Launchpad board with a Tiva TM4C1294 microcontroller (ARM Cortex-M4 based), using an SN74LVC245A buffer on the data bus because the Tiva is not 5V-tolerant. I wrote C code to read the ROM and send a hex dump out the USB-serial interface. Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/22368471 at N04/21611518545/ As I've needed to use the expansion bus interface of the Tiva for other projects, even though this was a lot of work to read one ROM, the experience and maybe even the code may be useful in the future. The next issue is that it appears that the 9895 may permute the address and/or data busses, as the contents of the ROM don't actually look like reasonable Z80 code.

10 years, 9 months

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vintage datacenter furniture

by BHuntsman＠mail2.cu-portland.edu

This is sort-of off topic, but not entirely... I've seen a fair amount of furniture like in the following picture: http://dooki.com/supercomputers/ibm/ibm.s390g4.gif It looks well-made, industrial, and vintage (sort of). Anyone know who makes such things? Did IBM have a go-to desk manufacturer for their stuff, or just whatever the customer provided? Thanks! -Ben

10 years, 9 months

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Sheet Metal Fabrication Options?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jay West > A couple items in my holdings have rust ... The only good solution I > could see is having the existing metalwork sandblasted and then > repainted. I've not checked, but I suspect that's "non-trivial-$". > Thoughts? Iff you have access to an air compressor, small sandblast units can be had at Harbour Freight for less than $50. If you don't have a compressor... well, that's considerably more money, but I find a compressor is a very useful thing to have. I feed our sandblast unit (one of the HF ones) with playground sand, a couple of $ per bag, which I feed through a sieve made of 4 pieces of scrap wood (frame) and some plastic door/window screen. (If you don't sieve it, the cheapo play sand has larger bits in it which tend to jam the nozzle.) And the sieve allows me to be _really_ cheap and sweep up the sand and recycle it. I refinished an H960 which I got which was in pretty nasty condition (very severe rust on the bottom surface, some rust elsewhere, e.g. on the uprights) using this rig, and some tins of spray paint (Rustoleum flat black), and it came out looking brand spanking new. (My attempt to do the same with a BA11 ran into some shoals, I screwed up the spray-painting - definitely an art! :-) Anyway, if you're up for doing it yourself, it's a useful capability to have in-house. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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Some amount of DG goodness

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, you have a very nice lot of DG stuff, indeed! I have a Nova 3 sitting on the garage, waiting for proper repair. However it's missing all the front panel switch levers, so I would need to rebuild them, not having had the luck of finding some at reasonable price. I have some picture of the original Nova 3 levers, however I didn't manged to have the exact size to fit an obtained plastic model very well. Would you mind to take one cover apart, and put it on a flat-bed scanner together with a clear ruler (in the same picture), so I can measure from the image the exact sizes? The profile is not the same, but I can obtain it from the camera pictures I already have, using your images as size reference for rescaling. Thanks Andrea

10 years, 9 months

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Overlay - one answer

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

And we have a winner of the overlay competition ..... From the CBASIC manual The CHAINstatement can load two types of programs: an overlay program generated by the linker, or a directly executable file. As I used CBASIC this must be where I got it from Rod Smallwood -- Wanted : KDJ11-E M8981 KK8-E M8300 KK8-E M8310 KK8-E M8320 KK8-E M8330

10 years, 9 months

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IBM 026 - Decision Data 8010 card punch on Ebay in

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

Wow. Thanks for sharing. What a beautiful looking machine. I hope one of us gets it. Marc ===================================== Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 18:36:20 +0200 From: Mattis Lind <mattislind at gmail.com> Not really a 026 but maybe contemporary with the 029: http://www.ebay.de/itm/Historische-EDV-Lochkartenstanzer-Card-Punch-von-1973 -2000-Lochkarten-/371439456530?hash=item567b845112 Not mine.

10 years, 9 months

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Sheet Metal Fabrication Options?

by brain＠jbrain.com

I was wondering if anyone has or knows anyone who has experience with low volume sheet metal enclosure fabrication? I am looking for a fabricator to build small (think game cartridge enclosure sizes) clamshell units (or similar). I thought before I start cold calling folks, I'd see if someone has already had some success. -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com

10 years, 9 months

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DG S/130 front panel switches?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

So does anyone have a trashed/dead front panel for a Data General S/130 (S/200 would also work) that can be a donor? All I need are two switches/paddles/Covers, but my S/200 front panel is perfect so I don't want to rob from that for the S/130 project. One light blue, one dark blue... Crossing my fingers..... J

10 years, 9 months

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Some amount of DG goodness

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I decided to raid the front panel of my S/200 to get a switch cover and a switch for the S/130; what can I say - I got antsy to see if the S/130 worked ;) When taking the S/200 front panel apart I found it really wasn't in great shape as it had appeared to be from the outside. A large number of the incandescents had broken off and were sitting loose and one of the switch covers was broken so someday I'll return to the S/200 but the S/130 restoration was completed as a result. Pictures (completely out of order) are at https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638 at N02 but the first picture shows the cpu up. Once or twice, running the microcoded self-test produced a "Rom Error", but almost always it produces the desired result and loops on that test (checks microcode checksum, ability to execute and step microcode, a few CPU instructions & paths, and tests the lowest 16Kw of ram). Raising switch 0 halts cpu at microcode address 2 just as it should. I also noticed that on rare occasion, hitting "examine" on AC1 produces no result - but other than that I can store and read AC0-3 as well as several different sections of memory. Next step is to locate a 4045 board and see if I can get a console hooked up. After that, I'll need some way to get diagnostics into the machine. To that end, I could try restoring a HD, 8" diskette, paper tape, or dual cassette drive - but I'm wondering if there is any previous art for entering a front panel ditty and stuffing diags down the console port (from a PC)? Yes, google is my next stop ;) Thanks to several listmembers and especially Bruce for pointers and advice, as documentation is scarce and not organized the way my brain works. Best, J

10 years, 9 months

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DEC Alpha 3000 Model 600

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

I'm pleased to be able to report the successful installation of OpenVMS 8.3 - Alpha on my 3000 M600 It now runs Dec Windows on the graphics screen and a terminal on the serial port. TCPIP works and I can get to my local network OK. Now to find a browser. There must have been one Rod -- Wanted : KDJ11-E for my 11/94 M8981 KK8-E M8300 KK8-E M8310 KK8-E M8320 KK8-E M8330

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

OK, there does appear to be larger disk support... now how about for RL02? Unfortunately the drive is not as smart as an RK (can't do spiral read/writes) so that would complicate things. However, each side of cylinder 0 is about 10KB, so 20K is available without having to move the drive head. I bet that would be enough swap area most of the time (it's not like most of us have 16 users all logged on simultaneously) :) -Charles

10 years, 9 months

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IBM 026

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> Well, here's an 029 (not quite what the OP was looking for, but good > enough for you all, I expect) for a not insane amount of money: > http://www.ebay.com/itm/281796720725 So I see this sold - anyone know who got it? Noel

10 years, 9 months

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IBM 026

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Marc Verdiell > thanks for taking care of a rare 026. Actually, IIRC this was an 029 - thread drift, after LCM (IIRC) enquired about a punch - for them, an 029 seemed as good as an 026. > this community is about celebrating people that have an interest in > saving old valuable hardware. Indeed, this whole list is about people saving computers that don't really have any _practical_ use any more. By definition, from a purely _functional_ perspective, their value is scrap. But our viewpoint is not that - we see them as interesting and historic artifacts - and in that light, their true value is set by that old mechanism, supply and demand. So some antique computers go for what I find remarkably low prices (e.g. QBUS -11 stuff) because there's a good supply, and other very similar machines go for a lot (that 11/70).because they are un-common. And IBM punches are not exactly common items... Noel

10 years, 9 months

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Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 05:57 AM 9/20/2015, Liam Proven wrote: >On 20 September 2015 at 05:58, John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> wrote: >> Someone's demonstrated you can hide in the firmware of hard drives. > >And access the hypervisor layer of an OS in various ways from programs >executing inside a VM. Yeah, that too. The easy recombination and modularization of malware makes it so much worse. I suspect there are quite a few easy ways that malware could hold hostage the typical VMware / Hyper-V / Veeam / NAS / SAN setups at many businesses, and easy money because it would be far easier to pay the ransom than to perform full disaster recovery. On a more classic-computer bent, though, I try to look backwards for wisdom about how this problem could be solved, and it's such a different world with the Internet and higher stakes and dependency on networked computers... it's not easy to solve. - John

10 years, 9 months

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VARM revision J transcription

by mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG

Something like two and a half years ago, I got a copy of EL-00032-00-decStd32_Jan90.pdf, a one-image-per-page scan of a paper copy of the VAX Architecture Reference Manual. I don't know where I got it, but bitsavers has a file of the same name with the same MD5 checksum at /pdf/dec/vax/archSpec/EL-00032-00-decStd32_Jan90.pdf now, so it likely was there. I played with trying to build character-recognition software to convert it to text and eventually decided it would be quicker and easier to do it myself. I've just finished that. (I'm not sure whether it actually was quicker or easier....) The result is available from ftp.rodents-montreal.org in /mouse/docs/DEC/VARM/EL-00032-00-decStd32_Jan90.txt for anyone who would care to grab a copy. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

10 years, 9 months

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Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

by lproven＠gmail.com

On 20 September 2015 at 05:58, John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> wrote: > Someone's demonstrated you can hide in the firmware of hard drives. And access the hypervisor layer of an OS in various ways from programs executing inside a VM. So, for instance, much malware self-inactivates if it detects that it's running inside a guest instance, so that anti-malware investigators cannot examine its behaviour. What is now being investigated (doubtless by both sides) is malware that can inject code into the hypervisor from within a guest. Once you've reached x86-64 Ring -1, then you're a god, you can do anything you like to any VM and no anti-malware in the VMs can prevent it. There is also research into using the increasingly industry-standard remote-management features in core chipsets to hide or distribute malware, again out of reach of any OS-level task. And there is the very controversial claim of malware that could transmit itself from machine to machine using speakers and microphone. It's a jungle out there, with all that that implies about parasitism, zombieism, concealment and stealth and creepy disgusting infections that hide for a lifetime then apparently explode out of nowhere. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)

10 years, 9 months

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Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

by cisin＠xenosoft.com

On Fri, 18 Sep 2015, John Foust wrote: > As to why your antivirus didn't see it... there's always a few days > before the latest infection mechanisms are documented and added to > the AV updates. CryptoLocker has been around for a year. I don't think that McAfee nor AVG see it. "Well, it's not a VIRUS, . . ." > When I first heard about Cryptolocker, I wanted to give up consulting > and find a different career. Is there a way to crowdfund a hit?

10 years, 9 months

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IBM 026

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

Todd, Well, hopefully this community is about celebrating people that have an interest in saving old valuable hardware. Not bullying them. Saving substantial hardware involves a substantial personal investment in time and money. So, Todd, well done, congratulations on your buy, and thanks for taking care of a rare 026. And if you need any tips for restoration I would be happy to help (I have an 026 and an 029, both fully functional now). Marc ====================================== Message: 27 From: Todd Goodman <tsg at bonedaddy.net> Subject: Re: IBM 026 Message-ID: <20150918235900.GF30683 at ns1.bonedaddy.net> * Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> [150918 07:25]: > So I see this sold - anyone know who got it? > > Noel Yes. I did. I'll let people know what's up when I receive it. Though i don't expect to get much time with it for a while. Todd

10 years, 9 months

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Garage sale in Silicon Valley

by tsw-cc＠johana.com

Various items that will probably be of interest here.? No reasonable offer refused. Hard copy??? You got it:DecWriter LA30? (modified to show lower case, yes it works).DecWriter LA36 (Decwriter II) Sun 4/110 floor standing model, 36 megs (if I remember correctly).Two SCSI boxes that go with the Sun, I believe one has an operating system on it.Apple LaserWriter Plus, two (UNOPENED) toner cartridges for it.ADDS Viewpoint 3A terminal. Just so you know it is "classic":JVC U-Matic (3/4 inch) video cassette recorder, with cables.? NTSC. Sorry I can't ship these, they are currently located in zip code 95008.PayPal accepted at time of sale. Make me an offer I can't refuse!

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

I would think the fixed head media swapped faster than the RK's unlessthee fixed head media was really slow... Ed# In a message dated 9/19/2015 10:45:53 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, aek at bitsavers.org writes: On 9/19/15 9:44 AM, John Wilson wrote: > later TSS/8s already supported RKs > as data disks, unless I've gone senile). No idea how they managed that -- > UW-M's TSS/8 supported that. It should be in the monitor sources that we read.

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

there was a time I really wanted a tss 8 system to use and even started colleting stuff for it in the late 70s but along came the 2000 f HP system I bought and I headed in that direction.. which gave be an HP destiny not a DEC Destiny. but still ... would love to find a tss-8 all together in the racks as used back then... Ed# In a message dated 9/19/2015 1:45:44 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, wilson at dbit.com writes: On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 12:30:13PM -0700, Al Kossow wrote: >When did the 4K user space(s?) actually swap? Did they round-robin or swap >based on activity? I would think they would stay in place until cpu-bound >jobs reached their time quantum. With only a couple of people on a 32k >machine, it may not even swap that much, depending on what the users were >running. I'd guess BASIC was pretty big. My understanding is that it's round-robin among runnable jobs, one time slice at a time. I.e. the simplest possible way. IIRC the monitor always takes up two fields (not swappable). One more field (so, 12 KW total) is the minimum necessary to run at all -- SI, FIP, and all the users can share that field with frantic enough swapping (which causes a pretty lights show on the RF08 panel). Any more memory than that means less swapping (or none), so it's kicking out the LRU job as needed. I have a hazy memory that SI and FIP *only* run in field 2? Could be wrong. BASIC runs in your 4 KW with you. I've never seen its sources so I don't know how clever it is about overlays and/or keeping your program on disk. It's a very limited BASIC. Strings are 6 characters. Not max -- *always* 6. Line #s max out at 2046. John Wilson D Bit

10 years, 9 months

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ISO 800-3827-10A_SunOS_Reference_Manual, part one

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Someone asked about uploading the SunOS 4.1 docubox I had scanned, so I finally got around to doing that today, but discovered that I never scanned the part 1, just the system calls of 800-3827. I suspect that I never had it. So if someone has that or a Solaris 1.x docubox a scan would be helpful.

10 years, 9 months

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PDP-11 manuals scanned/scanning

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

>> From: Jerome H. Fine >> a list of the actual links to the other PDF files which are >> available to be viewed would be appreciated. > I should probably throw together a web page with links to all the > PDP-11 files there (e.g. the one I just put together, of print sets > that are available inside other print sets), and link to that from my > home page. OK, done: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/PDP-11_Stuff.html I'll update it anything I put up anything else. Anyone and everyone is free, nay urged, to mirror any of the material that page links to on their own sites. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

Some years ago I recall reading about possibly modifying TSS/8 to run on more recent disks instead of the ancient DF32 (a whopping 32Kword fixed head disk with up to three more slaved platters). Did anyone actually implement the changes? I know it wouldn't work well on a moving-head disk without significant changes, because the swapping is more or less constant. -Charles

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

what is a O.O jay? In a message dated 9/19/2015 9:54:12 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: Ed wrote.... ---- Seems like a ssd would make an ideal fixed head replacement if it has to swap swap swap all the time? ---- O.O J

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Seems like a ssd would make an ideal fixed head replacement if it has to swap swap swap all the time? Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 9/19/2015 9:44:07 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, wilson at dbit.com writes: On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 10:50:04AM -0500, Charles wrote: >Some years ago I recall reading about possibly modifying TSS/8 to run on more >recent disks instead of the ancient DF32 (a whopping 32Kword fixed head disk >with up to three more slaved platters). Or the RF08/RS08 -- luxurious compared to a DF32/DS32! >Did anyone actually implement the changes? I know it wouldn't work well on a >moving-head disk without significant changes, because the swapping is more or >less constant. A zillion years ago, the DECUS library had a TSS/8 hack to make it run on an RK05 (as the only disk I mean -- later TSS/8s already supported RKs as data disks, unless I've gone senile). No idea how they managed that -- the wordiness of the DF/RF controllers penetrates deep into TSS/8's soul. Maybe RFILE/WFILE weren't done compatibly with vanilla TSS/8? Dunno. John Wilson [0,3]@SID D Bit

10 years, 9 months

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ENIAC programming Was: release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Dave Wade > Crispin Rope concentrates on the power of ENIAC and its usefulness Which is why you should look at the longer, later article: http://eniacinaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/EngineeringTheMiracleof… in particular the part I pointed out (bottom right corner of pg. 51), which talks about all the things that can be found in that early ENIAC code, e.g. subroutine calls with storage of return point, etc. I am far less interested in the comparison with other machines (in that article) than I am with the enumeration of what the 'program ENIAC' _itself_ could do - which seems to have been quite a lot. > to me a "computer" without self-modifying code is a programmable > calculator even if it has index registers... So a modern Harvard-architecture machine (e.g. AMD29K) with only ROM on the instruction bus is a programmable calculator? It's precisely that hypothetical which leads me to conclude that the fact that the 'program ENIAC' only had ROM for its code (actually, technically, that's quite not true - it could execute programs stored on cards, too) is not that important; I think the thing to look at is what its programs could contain. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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DEC RX8-E, M8316, M8317, M8365, M8366

by useddec＠gmail.com

I have a limited of M8357, RX8-Es for sale, first come, first served, for $175. I think I found the M8316, M8317, LQP01 interface, and LA180 interface, and will try to post a price in the next few days. Shipping within US is $10 for up to 10. Shipping from 61853.

10 years, 9 months

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SIMH PDP-8 question

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I have Lunar Lander (in Focal) working again on my PDP-8/A with two RL02 drives (about which you have been reading a lot lately). It's been so long I don't remember where I got the text file (LUNAR.TX) from, but it's on both my RL02 OS/8 image and the physical pack... The rather unusual way I got the Focal program saved onto the RL02 was to punch the text file to paper tape on the Teletype, start Focal, read the paper tape from the Teletype, then save the "typed"-in program to disk. Think that's how I did it quite a few years ago when I got the system, too. So far my best game is 0.20 mph "perfect landing - lucky!" :) Takes me back to junior high in the 70's... Anyway, I'd like to do the same thing in SIMH (get the text file into Focal and then save it as a Focal program). Is there any way to do this with SIMH? Can I assign the text file to a paper tape reader, for example? thanks Charles

10 years, 9 months

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Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

by r_a_feldman＠hotmail.com

>From: Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > >> I think a more important issue in backing up is "How many GENERATIONS > >to you keep around?" > >For many purposes, that's an important consideration, yes. There's >something (small) I back up weekly for which I keep the most recent >seven backups, the oldest backup in each of the most recent twelve >months, and the oldest backup in any year. I'm considering something >of the sort for my house backups - live replication to a backup host, >with a once-a-week freeze of the replica, storing past replica drives >on a scheme somewhat like the above. There is a ramsomware variant that encrypts the files but silently decrypts them when they are accessed. It does this for six months before deactivating the on-demand decryption and displaying the ransom message, the theory being that by that time all of the backups will be of the encrypted files, and thus will be useless for restoring good versions. As to how one can become infected, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/27/malvertising_feature/?page=1. Major sites, such as The New York Times, Reuters, Yahoo!, and Bloomberg, have been serving malware -- including ransomeware -- through hijacked advertisements. No need to click on anything, the ad serves up the malware. BTW, where I work got hit with ransomeware in December. We were lucky that it first hosed the accounting/time tracking database, which generated errors when someone tried to enter her time. When I went to restore a backup of the database, I noticed the ransomware's html ransom note file and shut down the system before too many more files were encypted. We were able to restore everything (except the originally infected user's computer, which we wiped and reinstalled) from an unconnected backup drive. Bob

10 years, 9 months

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HP-41 User Library Programs and Documentation.

by hp-fix＠xs4all.nl

For the cost of shipment, the below is surging for a new owner. About nine books with program cards containing programs about: - Control - Electrical Engineering - Business - 81XX Processors assembly conversion - Math and calculus - Graphics and printing - Etc.. H-41 User Library Documents, some about filing new programs other copies of the actual User Library Books Program documentation belonging to some of the program cards. The weight of it is about 3kg so shipping will be in 2-5kg range. It is of cause as is, no warranty etc.. If interested contact me off-list

10 years, 9 months

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release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

by spacewar＠gmail.com

I've been searching for introduction dates of early microcomputer operating systems, by which I mean only operating systems that run on computers using single-chip microprocessors such as 8008, 8080, and 6800, but not the LSI-11, IMP-16, HP 9830, etc. Intel's ISIS operating system for their MDS was first released in 1975, but I haven't been able to pin down a month. I'm looking for a more specific date for that, and for the releases of any prior microcomputer operating system. On Twitter, @hotelzululima suggested Motorola MIKBUG, introduced in 1974, but IMO it's a monitor, not an operating system. Hzl also suggested Forth, which I also don't really consider to be an operating system in the traditional sense, but if there's evidence of Forth or a Forth-like language available for a microcomputer prior to 1976, that would be interesting as well.

10 years, 9 months

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12" Floppy Disks

by barythrin＠gmail.com

Is he also in the UK? Details or dates would help. Did he say it was a floppy like disk or just disc like a platter? I have to look around but i actually have something that sounds like it but I've never looked up what it really was. Figured it'd be disappointing and newer than it looks lol. I dont have a web site to display pictures but i can look for it and email you or someone else a shot of it. ?My guess is its really a magnetic backup tape. ?I haven't measured it but venture i can take a picture of it in front of a trs-80 model 2 that has 8" drives for comparison. <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Adrian Graham <binarydinosaurs at gmail.com> </div><div>Date:09/15/2015 3:39 AM (GMT-06:00) </div><div>To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> </div><div>Subject: 12" Floppy Disks </div><div> </div>Morning folks, I've been contacted by a teacher who's looking for any information about 12" floppies. Am I imagining that they really existed? I'm sure I've seen one or seen adverts for them, maybe at Bletchley Park. Others he's contacted think he's getting confused with 12" laser discs but I'm not so sure. Anyone? -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

10 years, 9 months

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Canon Cat for sale

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I have a Canon Cat in terrific shape for sale. It works just fine. The screen is bright and clean. It also comes with the Canon Cat printer. See photos here: http://vintagetech.com/sales/Canon%20Cat/ More information available upon request. Asking $1,400 or best offer. Thanks. -- Sellam ibn Abraham VintageTech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintagetech.com Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The truth is always simple. * * * NOTICE * * * Due to the insecure nature of the medium over which this message has been transmitted, no statement made in this writing may be considered reliable for any purpose either express or implied. The contents of this message are appropriate for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. The right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.

10 years, 9 months

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ENIAC programming Was: release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Al Kossow >> the machine had to be configured (via connecting up computing units >> with cables) > In 1947 ENIAC was modifed at BRL to be a stored program computer. Well, I did say "in the original ENIAC usage" it had to be configured by plugging! I was aware of the later conversion. > http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1339839 Crispin Rope, "ENIAC as a Stored-Program Computer: A New Look at the Old Records", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 29 No. 4, October 2007 Thanks for that pointer. I couldn't get access to that paper (it's behind a paypal I don't have the ability to pierce - I would be grateful if someone could send me a copy), but in looking for it online, I did find the very similar: Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestley, Crispin Rope, "Engineering 'The Miracle of the ENIAC'", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 36, No. 2, April-June 2014 which includes the same author, and is later, so hopefully more definitive. It's quite interesting: according to that, the conversion of ENIAC to a 'stored program' configuration, after a period of about a year of discussion and planning, took place starting around March, 1948, and the first problem was run using it in April, 1948 - and it cites a lot of contemporary documents to that effect. (As the article points out, this contradicts the long-and-widely-held impression, from a statement in Goldstine's book - and if anyone knew, it should have been him! - that gave the date of that as September, 1948.) Anyway, the new, earlier date is of course is very shortly before the Baby ran _its_ first program, in June, 1948. So there is a rather interesting question as to which 'computer' ran first. I'd always gathered it was the Baby, but this new data may overturn that. It is true that the 'program ENIAC' (to invent a term to differentiate that stage of the machine from the earliest configurations, which used the cabling method) did not store its program in the same read-write memory as data, as the Baby did, instead storing it in 'EPROM' (switches). However, I don't consider that very important; nobody says that a machine running out of PROM isn't a computer! The important thing is that it's a program, with things like subroutine calls >from different locations, address modification for data access, etc, and the 'program ENIAC' apparently had all that (see the list at the bottom of page 51 in the article). So it's likely indeed be the 'first computer'. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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12745 HP-IB Adapter

by ball.of.john＠gmail.com

So last week I did a rather insane 3000km road trip that had me travel through four states (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montanna) and over an international line to pick up a "pack-loading HP disk drive". It turned out to be a rather nice condition 7925B with a 13037C controller in the cabinet. It has the usual nasty foam you gotta remove and replace but otherwise it's extremely clean inside and out and powered up trouble-free. Unfortunately I didn't receive any 13356A packs with it, nor did I receive the critical component I needed: the 12745 HP-IB adapter kit. I don't actually own any HP minis unless you include the PA-RISC HP9000 D350 but I have a number of machines that will support mass storage over GPIB/HP-IB, including a Silicon Graphics machine. Anyways while I found all the documentation I needed for the drive, controller and adapter and there's that one pack on ebay for a less-than-modest $350 I cannot find even a hint of anyone who has a spare 12745 kit for sale. Was this an uncommon addon or am I just not looking in the right places? -John

10 years, 9 months

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Paging Wayne Smith

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

Wayne, if you see this please contact me ASAP. Thanks. -- Sellam ibn Abraham VintageTech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintagetech.com Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The truth is always simple. * * * NOTICE * * * Due to the insecure nature of the medium over which this message has been transmitted, no statement made in this writing may be considered reliable for any purpose either express or implied. The contents of this message are appropriate for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. The right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.

10 years, 9 months

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Spelling reforms [was RE: punchcard svg file available]

by RichA＠LivingComputerMuseum.org

From: Dave G4UGM Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2015 12:06 PM >> From: Liam Proven >> Sent: 10 September 2015 16:17 >> On 10 September 2015 at 15:42, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: >>> He also said that the colored pencils that I manually did graphs with >>> were "COLOUR PENCILS". >> Sounds legit to me. But then in the old world we still spell the proper, >> old-fashioned-way. ;?) > I believe that historically "color" or "colour" was acceptable in English. Correct. "Colour" reflects Norman French, "color" reflects Latin. > It was the Victorians that pushed the current "English" spellings in an > attempt to "Latinise" or "Latinize" or even "Posh Up" English and Webster > who pushed the simplified spellings that the USA uses today.... However, it was far earlier than the Victorians. Noah Webster (1758-1843) only overlaps the Victorian era by 6 years; he was reacting against the aristocratic spelling norms of the 17th and 18th centuries, when Latin and Greek were held to be more important than English in the learning of the latter language. His spelling book was originally published in 1783. Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computer Museum 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

10 years, 9 months

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HP 2225A HP-IB Thinkjet Parts wanted (in Europe)

by Martin.Hepperle＠dlr.de

Hello, in order to repair a HP-IL device I am looking for remains of HP-IB (yes) Thinkjet Printers. I only need the PCB resp. the HP-IL chip on the PCB for desoldering and implanting into another PCB. The mechanics can be damaged or even missing. Martin

10 years, 9 months

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ENIAC programming Was: release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From Dave > AMD29K isn't "Modern" Well, compared to the ENIAC it is! :-) To be serious, the 29K is fully what we now think of as a 'computer'; that's all I meant by saying it's "modern". > If you have to use another external mechanism to arbitrarily change the > program, then it's a calculator..... Alas, if you hold to that, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, because to me, a 29K with only ROM on the I-bus is clearly a 'computer'. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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Cryptolocker (was RE: Is tape dead?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I took on a brand new client a while back, and before doing any real work for them they were hit by cryptolocker. I hadn't yet even done a "IT Review" for them, so didn't yet know what systems they had in place. Thus, under the gun, I started looking at their backup setup, and found it "severely lacking". They did have a backup system from the previous IT guy, but due to the way it was set up it would have taken days to get the data off of it and all moved back into the correct spots. So given days of billable time/work or paying the ransom, we chose to pay the ransom as the most expedient solution. They only accepted bitcoin, and there was a deadline after which the ransom doubled or more. So we jumped through hoops to get a bitcoin account set up, funds deposited, etc. That was a rather convoluted process and took time (albeit less time than working with the existing "backup" system). Soon as the bitcoin was transferred to the hostages account, a key was received online via the TOR browser. Yep, the key worked, and decrypted all the data. A new (and easy/functional) backup system was put in place immediately thereafter. I've also talked to a few of my associates who own IT consulting firms, and any of them that decided to pay the ransom did in fact get a working decryption key. ZFS is a good solution :) Best, J

10 years, 9 months

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Additional config info for Camintonn CMV-250, CMV-500, CMV-254, CMV-504

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So I have a couple of these Camintonn boards (a -500 and a -254, to be exact), both using 256Kx1 DRAM's. I wanted to upgrade them both (by adding memory chips) to be -504's (2MB), and I noticed that the -254 had a couple of jumper wires that the -500 did not, so I needed to know what those jumpers did. I looked online, and although there is a little bit of info, it doesn't cover those jumpers. My first thought was that they might be timing-related; one board used -12 parts, the other -15. However, after some poking around, I think (with 98% certainty, although I haven't traced etches to be 100.000% certain) that they actually allow the boards to be used with both 64Kx1 and 256Kx1 memory parts. I hereby offer up all the details in case anyone's interested: I found a document which described them as "Starting and ending address boundary" (alas, without giving any detail, but which confirmed they aren't timing-related). The clincher as to their function was the capacities of the various board versions: CMV-504 2 MB Memory Module CMV-254 1 MB Memory Module CMV-500 512 KB Memory Module CMV-250 256 KB Memory Module How do you get a 256KB board using 256K devices on a memory board that has to produce 16-bit wide words? Clearly, the board was first produced with 64Kx1 chips, and so it likely (like the similar NS23C) that it can be configured to use either 64Kx1 or 256Kx1 chips. Here are the details of how to do that: down near the fingers, there are a block of 6 solder pads, denoted thus: MPR NOS (Note that there is _another_ 'S' on the board, at the top.) On board #1, the CMV-254, it has jumpers on M-N, P-R (apparently the configuration for use of 256K chips), and etch cuts on R-S, N-O (likely the configuration for 64K chips). On board #2, the CMV-500, it has a slightly different PCB (likely a later rev), and has no jumpers, and has etch connections M-N, P-R (note - the same as the #1 board has jumpers). Hope this is useful to someone! Note that the board was normally sold with 1, 2, or 4 rows of chips. (Interestingly, there must be two ways to produce a CMV-500 - 1 row of 256K parts, or 4 rows of 64K parts. I've never seen one of the latter, but would be interested to know if anyone has.) I plan to verify that the board actually works OK with _3_ rows of chips (i.e. as a 1.5M board), with the appropriate settings - will update when I try that. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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